The Murray Lock and Dam Bicycle Pedestrian Bridge — also known as the Big Dam Bridge — opens in Little Rock, Arkansas, this fall as the nation's longest bridge built for such use.
The 3,463-foot bridge links 25 miles of bike-hike trails in the cities of Little Rock and North Little Rock, as well as connecting two recreation areas — Murray Park and Cooks Landing. With the approaches, it measures 4,300 feet.
The bridge will solve a huge problem. There are no safe bike routes across the Arkansas River in Pulaski County; three are Interstate highways and the Main and Broadway streets crossing are too congested and dangerous.
It's an Army Corps of Engineers project; the feds paid $12.5 million while Pulaski County forked in about $4 million. The deck is 14 feet wide, and the structure can support utility pipelines in the future. There's a longer bike-hike bridge in St. Louis, but it started its life as a railroad bridge.
According to KTHV-TV news:
Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines recalls that he came up with a name for the world's longest bridge built expressly for pedestrians and bicyclists at a point when officials were unsure whether they'd be able to build it. He said he vowed, quote, “We're going to build that dam bridge,” unquote, not indicating how he wanted to word “dam” interpreted or spelled.
The scheduled opening on Sept. 30 will be commemorated with the Big Dam Bridge 100, a bicycle ride. Let's hope everyone has a lot of dam fun using the bridge.
Also see Bicycle Advocacy of Central Arkansas.
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