Here’s a shot from betwixt the two Liberty Memorial Bridges. The bridge on the right is straight as an arrow. Solid. Strong. Holding way more concrete on its deck than was ever intended when it was designed. You’ve got to admire that old world craftsmanship. The bridge on the left is designed to arc across the Missouri River. But was it designed to look so wavy and uneven?

I threw this shot of the north side of the new bridge into Photoshop and put it to the test. The red line follows the edge of the bridge’s beam and its curves. The green line follows a smooth arc over the same relative path. I used the path pen tool in Photoshop, so I know my curves are accurate.

Here’s the same story on the bridge’s southern side. Certainly they were capable of putting together a better bridge than this? The thing looks like it’s going to be the highway equivalent of a kiddie coaster! The wavy ups and downs of the beams are not worthy of a bridge of this importance to our community. Call me old fashioned, but I expected a smoothly arcing bridge across the Missouri, as the original drawings portrayed. Maybe once they tighten all the screws, everything will fall into line. Ya think?

Edit: First off, I replaced the word “wobbly” with “wavy” because I thought wobbly indicated a structural instability. I don’t mean to imply that.

Secondly, a friend whose opinion I trust in matters of engineering told me that it looks intentional. It’s true, when you look at the spans closely you’ll see that the upward bow of the beams forms a pattern. Perhaps it’s just unflattering from this angle. That was the point I was trying to make in this post, that it looks pretty weird from below. Once the old bridge is removed, we’ll see how it looks on its own.