The Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge in Dallas opened for traffic recently with much fanfare. Dallasites have tried to be patient as they watched the 400-foot structure rise across the Trinity River over the course of 5 years. The bridge connects Singleton Boulevard in West Dallas across the Trinity River to Woodall Rodgers (Spur 366) in downtown Dallas. A Vespa rider and a group of motorcyclists were at the front of the line of those gathered to be the first across this internationally renowned architect Santiago Calatrava designed bridge.
The local NBC News affiliate spoke with these riders in the segment below.
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Why all the hub-bub, you may wonder. This is a unique architectural structure meant to set Dallas apart from other cities, to become its iconic image, it very own Eiffel Tower, if you will.
According to the City of Dallas, the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge is Calatrava’s first vehicular bridge to be built in the United States. The impressive 400-foot white arch, consisting of 25 steel segments, anchors the cable-stayed portion of the bridge with 58 cables ranging in size from four to eight inches in diameter. Each cable attached to the arch is secured back down into the center spine of the bridge bed itself, thus holding itself in suspension. Spring 2011, the cables were completely installed on the bridge. The officially started carrying traffic on March 29, 2012 with the aforementioned motorcyclists.
