Vanessa Victor featured in Roads & Bridges Magazine

Small Bridges Matter to America

When Americans picture bridges, we can’t help but think about big, bold engineering marvels such as the Golden Gate Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Royal Gorge Bridge, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, or the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway.

However, the “bread and butter” bridges are the tens of thousands of small bridges, many 200 feet or less, such as the Heart River Bridge in Dickinson, North Dakota, or the Pigtail Bridges in the Black Hills, South Dakota, or F-13-S-Minor (milepost 211) along I-70 in Summit County, Colorado. While these bridges may not make postcards, they are what allow people, cars, trucks and rail cars to move easily from one place to the next. They connect our farms to market roads, bolster tourism and the economy, and aid in the transportation of materials. Put all these bridges together and you have a vast network that allows Americans and the goods we need to flow from one place to another.

Many of us who live in big cities often don’t see these small bridges or realize their value to those who live in rural America, much less to ourselves. Bridges not only allow food, fuel, and other products that are critical to our day-to-day lives to travel, but they also connect people.

Read the full featured article in Roads & Bridges magazine.

Vanessa Victor, P.E., is a lead engineer with Ulteig’s Transportation team with a focus on Bridges & Structures.