Let there be a bridge

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No matter what you think of the MFX this is cool in itself.  h/t to The Atlantic Cities for catching this time-lapse video posted online by Brenda Smeltzer capturing the erection of the  Monongahela River Bridge, a section of the nearly vestigial Mon Fayette Expressway.   See below.

I will say that the current picture of the bridge in waiting has an almost impressionistic quality to it.

Even as someone who tries to follow such things I find that the true status of the greater Mon Fayette Expressway is hard to discern.  I believe it has been years since the local project office closed. Still the explanation of the office's closing..i.e. that it was merely: "pause in project advancement due to funding limitations" remains a paragon of bureaucratic euphemism.  The project's web site clearly identifies itself not as for the full "Mon Fayette Expressway" but merely for the Brownsville to Uniontown segment. 

One thing is for sure.. the MFX has a nearly perpetual history to it all.  Some good comments on that history in this old post here .  I am reminded of how long that history is every time I go over the Birmingham Bridge.  If you ever wonder why that bridge is so seemingly over-engineered (photo in that link via Evergrey on the Skyscraper forum), it clearly was once intended to be a cog in the greater highway vision. So it was not intended to be merely a connection between the Southside and Oakland/Uptown, but the major ingress to the city for a highway that never came to be.  Even if it is being underused in that sense, they ought to oil the joints as they are supposed to, but seem to overlook.  To be fair, that problem was a bit more complicated than that, but still lack of maintenance was a contributing factor.

I digress...  What I would love to see is a compilation of other Pittsburgh-themed time-lapse videos that are out there.  We at least need a top 10 don't you think?  Nominations?

Anyway...  the new bridge: