Bridge Madness 2026 – Introduction

Posted on February 22, 2026 by Carolyn Ristau

Rules

In the 2026 Bridge Madness Tournament, 16 London bridges go pier-to-pier in a reader’s choice tournament to pick the best one. I engaged with approximately 18 bridges across the River Thames on my last trip to London. Because the Blackfriars Station Railway Bridge was under construction when I was there, it is not included in this tournament. The Jubilee-Hungerford Bridges are either 1 or 3 bridges depending on how you count them. For the purposes of this tournament, we are counting them as 1 bridge to stay with our usual 16 tournament bridges.

Beginning March 1, you will be able to vote for your favorite bridge in each bracket. The champion bridge will be announced on March 29. Don’t forget to come back each week to vote your favorite bridge to #1!

Each round of voting will go live at 8 AM on the scheduled Sunday and close at noon the following Saturday. The schedule is:

March 1 – Sweet Sixteen
March 8 – Elite Eight
March 15 – Final Four
March 22 – Championship
March 29 – Winner announced

The 16 London Bridges in this tournament are listed below. Click on the links to learn more about urbantraipsing’s encounter with each bridge.

Albert Bridge
Battersea Bridge
Battersea Railroad Bridge
Blackfriars Bridge
Cannon Street Railway Bridge
Chelsea Bridge
Grosvenor Bridge
Jubilee Bridges
Lambeth Bridge
London Bridge
Millennium Bridge
Southwark Bridge
Tower Bridge
Vauxhall Bridge
Waterloo Bridge
Westminster Bridge

Bridge Madness 2026 Map

George Mason Memorial Bridge + Others

Posted on February 15, 2026 by Carolyn Ristau

After cataloguing the photos from my April 2025 bridge walking in Washington, DC,¹ I revisited the photos from my prior trips to the city and was surprised to find this wasn’t the first time I had walked a bridge across the Potomac River.

In May 2012, weeks after I had launched my bridge-walking career in London and days before I launched this blog, I was in Washington, DC, visiting my uncle. Based on my photos, I believe we rode the Metro and got off at the Crystal City stop. From there, we walked the Mount Vernon Trail passing over National Avenue/Smith Blvd by bridge and passing under the Long Bridge, Charles R. Fenwick Bridge, Arland D. Williams Jr. Memorial Bridge, 14th Street Bridge, and George Mason Memorial Bridge. We finished our bridge exploring by walking across the Potomac River on the George Mason Memorial Bridge.

Francis Scott Key Memorial Bridge, Frederick Douglass Bridge, Anacostia River Canals, and C&O Canal ↩︎

Washington, DC, Mural

Posted on February 8, 2026 by Carolyn Ristau

On Day 2 of my April 2025 Washington, DC, trip, I needed to take it easy. However, I couldn’t sit inside all day. On a short excursion near Union Station, I got uncomfortable as I approached the underbelly of the railroad bridge over K Street. My experience of similar structures in Pittsburgh is that they are dark, dirty, untended, and creepy. Bird droppings or bridge droppings are likely to land on you at any point.

The underbelly of this bridge over K Street defied my expectations. A light mural created a welcoming and engaging experience that felt more like Buffalo’s Seneca One murals than the underbelly of Pittsburgh’s railroad bridges. Because light was used instead of paint, it lit up a dark place and incorporated engaging animation:

Go Fish 6

Posted on February 1, 2026 by Carolyn Ristau

GoFish! was a fundraiser in Erie, PA, in 2001. When we found “Red Wing” by Annoel & Peggy Krider on our 2023 trip, the pattern painted on it had changed slightly from the original. The current version pops more than the photo in the “offishial” GoFish! book. It was easy to spot as soon as we got to the site identified on Amy H.’s map as the current home for this fish.

As FourSquare isn’t available anymore, I have created my own maps for where I encountered Erie’s fish and frogs, plus statues in other cities: https://urbantraipsing.com/public-art-maps/

Gateway Park, Arlington

Posted on January 24, 2026 by Carolyn Ristau

While walking from the Rosslyn Metro Station to the Francis Scott Key Memorial Bridge over the Potomac, we walked over a surprise bridge. If we had chosen to walk over on the upriver side of the Francis Scott Key Memorial Bridge, I may have completely missed that we walked a bridge over I-66.

Gateway Park is a “cap” over the freeway and is both a park and a bridge. Unlike Pittsburgh’s CAP or Frankie Pace Park, Gateway Park was built in the 1980s at the same time as the freeway it covers. It also distinguishes itself from Pittsburgh’s park/bridge by appearing to be fully integrated with the surrounding city and having well-utilized programming.

C&O Canal Bridge, Georgetown

Posted on January 15, 2026 by Carolyn Ristau

I couldn’t resist the temptation to walk across the C&O Canal, or what’s left of it. The climb down to this bridge from Georgetown and the Francis Scott Key Memorial Bridge included a very steep street and then some steps. Yet, this bridge is still significantly above the level of the river, approximately in line with the elevated freeway of Rt. 29.

After walking the downward slope across this bridge and its ramp to the towpath level, we had to walk down a set of stairs to reach the level of the Georgetown Waterfront Park. As the sidewalk on Francis Scott Key Memorial Bridge is more than 60 ft above the water, the hike from the bridge to the waterfront park across the C&O Canal bridge is similar to climbing down and then up the stairs in a 6-7 story building.

There was an interesting mural along the stairs, and the park itself was beautiful, but the need to conserve my energy at this point limited the photos I took to the most important (the views of the Francis Scott Key Memorial Bridge and the underside of the elevated freeway shared in the Francis Scott Key Memorial Bridge post).

Francis Scott Key Memorial Bridge, DC

Posted on January 8, 2026 by Carolyn Ristau

Knowing that wandering at will and walking as many bridges as possible was no longer a feasible option for me, my brother and I identified two must-see bridges for my weekend in DC: the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge and the Francis Scott Key Memorial Bridge.

Not to be confused with Baltimore’s collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, the Francis Scott Key Memorial Bridge links Georgetown, DC, to the Rosslyn neighborhood of Arlington, VA.

The Francis Scott Key Memorial Bridge is a curvilinear arch bridge carrying a six-lane highway with wide sidewalks on both sides over the Potomac River. It was built in 1917-1924. The width made it easy and comfortable to walk despite a high number of other pedestrians, bikes, and scooters on the sidewalk, and the speed of cars racing across.

We walked along the downriver side, which provides ever changing views of downtown DC, the Kennedy Center, and the Washington Monument, thanks to the forested Theodore Roosevelt Island and nearly 90 degree bend in the river. This gave me plenty of excuses to pause, hydrate, rest, and take a photo.

Georgetown and Rosslyn both sit high above the river, which meant the bridge is also elevated far above the river. It is high enough that an elevated freeway sits comfortably halfway between the bridge and the riverside ground level on the Georgetown side.

The goals of urbantraipsing and pacing for Long COVID were a delicate balance as we walked across the Francis Scott Key Memorial Bridge. There were several important decision points along the way. Option 1 was to walk only half-way across the bridge. I don’t like doing that for urbantraipsing and there was a coffee shop on the far end that was a good option for refilling my water bottle and taking a short rest. So we walked all the way across.

As we approached the Georgetown side, I was very tempted to climb down to the park near the level of the water. I could tell that this would be a great spot to get an establishing shot for the bridge, but the effort of climbing down and back up from there did not seem worth it . . . until I saw that in doing so, we would walk across a C&O Canal bridge. Adding another bridge to my collection along with the fact that we could sit by the riverside and rest before climbing back up tipped the balance of pros and cons in favor of going down.

Due to the placement of Metro stations, the only choice for getting back to the Metro and on to our next stop was to retrace our steps back across the bridge. By the time we did all that, it was lunchtime and I had nearly reached my daily step count.

Go Fish 5

Posted on January 1, 2026 by Carolyn Ristau

GoFish! was a fundraiser in Erie, PA, in 2001. By the time we found “The Cosmic Fish, Inspired by Frederick Franck” by William J. Doan on our 2023 trip, we had gotten into the habit of asking for help once we got inside the building identified on Amy H.’s FourSquare map. This time we got a surprisingly quick response from the first person we saw: “Oh, yeah, it’s right there.”

As FourSquare isn’t available anymore, I have created my own maps for where I encountered Erie’s fish and frogs, plus statues in other cities: https://urbantraipsing.com/public-art-maps/

Frederick Douglass Bridge, DC

Posted on December 18, 2025 by Carolyn Ristau

For years, even before I started urbantraipsing, I thought nothing of walking from transit stop to transit stop, bridge to bridge, as I explore and encounter the expected and unexpected nooks and crannies of a city. That way of life came crashing to a devastating halt in the fall of 2023 when I developed Long COVID.

Six months passed.

And then a year.

The return to “normal” my doctors promised seemed increasingly unlikely. But a return to functional seemed within reach. The question remained: did urbantraipsing fall within this new functionality?

After a few local test excursions, I felt physically and mentally strong enough to test travel. In April 2025, I took a long-overdue trip to visit my brother in Washington, DC. On this trip, I encountered some great bridges and learned that, much like other activities, with modification and accommodation urbantraipsing is a way of life I can continue.

The open, through-arch Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge was one of our expected encounters. I probably would have been ecstatic about the unexpected benches in the lookouts between the arches under previous circumstances. After all, it isn’t every day that you find a bench on a bridge. However, in the past, I probably would have just said “that’s cool,” photographed them, and moved on. Instead, I took full advantage of these seats for one of my rest and rehydration breaks. This slow down is the reason I spotted the Yard Park Bridge, a bridge I definitely needed to add to my collection.

Perhaps slowing down and being more intentional to accommodate my Long COVID needs will continue to add depth to my urbantraipsing experiences.

Anacostia River Canals

Posted on December 11, 2025 by Carolyn Ristau

The Anacostia Riverwalk Trail crosses over the openings of several canal channels within a short distance from the Frederick Douglass Bridge in Washington, DC. The first canal opening that I walked over, I had no idea that I was walking on a bridge…like when I walked over the Grosvenor Canal in London. It wasn’t until I was checking out the views from the Frederick Douglass Bridge that I saw the opening for the canal underneath the path I had just walked. (First picture in the slide show below.)

The bridge pictured above appears to have been over a canal that fed into or out of (or both?) the old O Street Pumping Station. This bridge was clearly visible as we walked passed it on our way to the Frederick Douglass. I was tempted to cross it (as a bridge walker, it is hard to walk passed a bridge and not over it), but I was tired and trying to conserve energy. However, once on the Frederick Douglass Bridge, I spotted another pedestrian bridge just beyond this one that I could not pass up the opportunity to walk, no matter how tired I was.

The Yard Park Bridge is a highly photogenic bridge, perhaps rivalling London’s Millennium Bridge. It crosses over what I think are the remnants of the Washington City Canal, most of which has been paved over. The paved portion visible from the Yard Park Bridge reminded me of the portions of the Erie Canal in Buffalo paved over for a skating rink and other recreational purposes.