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Minneapolis Bridge's Rise Draws Crowd

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The New York Times

Published: June 8, 2008

MINNEAPOLIS - On a sunny Saturday, more than 300 people stood in clusters squinting out at the gurgling Mississippi River and the spot where one of the state's most-traveled bridges fell down one evening last August, killing 13 people and injuring many more.

Near the front of Saturday morning's crowd, which included tourists with cameras and water bottles, a Boy Scout troop all in navy and a man celebrating his 75th birthday, stood Peter Sanderson, the project manager for a $234 million bridge that is rising above the waters here.

Trailed by workers in hard hats lugging loudspeakers, Sanderson used a microphone to answer seemingly endless questions: How strong will the metal be in the concrete bridge? How peculiar is its design? Has it been used before in this country?

On and on the quizzing went, part of an unusual series of public meetings the Minnesota Department of Transportation calls the Sidewalk Superintendent tours.

Hundreds gather to stare at the emerging Interstate 35W bridge, the gargantuan cranes, the dump trucks and excavators, the crushed rail cars nearby (the last vestige of the collapse) and to make a million disparate inquiries, most of which, in the end, seem to come back to a single, never-uttered question: Will this bridge really stay up?

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