Looking beyond the Falls to Canada from the bridge connecting Green Island to the US mainland.
There are 7 bridges connecting the islands above Niagara Falls to each other and to the US side of the river. The American Falls Bridge is the only one that permits public auto traffic. The two connecting Green Island to the US mainland and to Goat Island were originally designed to accommodate auto traffic, but are now closed to public vehicles. The remainder were designed for pedestrians only.
American Falls Bridge
Bridge between Green Island and US Mainland
Bridge between Goat Island and Green Island
Bridge between Three Sisters Island and Goat Island
Bridge between middle Three Sisters Island and northern Three Sisters Island
Bridge between southern Three Sisters Island and middle Three Sisters Island
A year ago, I experienced cascades of emotion and healing at Niagara Falls.
As with many people, 2025 was an incredibly stressful year for me, partly due to factors affecting US society at large and partly due to unique personal factors. Among the personal factors was the difficult illness and death of an aunt, who I felt a unique sympathetic connection to and who I felt I had only just started to really get to know right before she became ill. I was staying in Niagara Falls to attend her memorial service held in a town a few miles downriver.
I had been to Niagara Falls many times before, but most of those trips were before I turned 12 and I was at the mercy of my parents’ choices. I remember once having a conversation about what side of the Falls we were going to visit that time. We had been enough times to both sides that I had a preference. And while I don’t remember which side I preferred, it was the opposite of the one my parents preferred. The last time I visited Niagara Falls, I was 18, on a weekend adventure with my dormmates, in the middle of the night in the middle of winter.
Twenty years later, visiting the Falls for the first time when I had full control over the choices of the how, when, and where I explored, it was like visiting for the first time ever. Some sights were vaguely familiar, particularly close to the Falls, but there was so much that I didn’t recognize.
Niagara Falls is so much more than the Falls themselves. Frederick Law Olmsted recognized this and successfully fought to create Niagara Falls State Park to protect the sublime encounters with nature against the fast encroaching industries spurred by the power of the water.
While most of the industries are now gone and Urban Renewal rushed through much of downtown Niagara Falls leaving behind soul-crushing expanses of wide, empty roads surrounding empty islands of parking lots and vacant lots; the river rushing around islands of soul-soothing woods on its way to the roaring cataract remains much as it was 100 or even 150 years ago.
As I walked down paths and over bridges designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, I felt that I could see what he saw and feel what he felt.1 Then, as I crossed a bridge to the Three Sisters Islands, I felt my aunt and uncle join me.
A few years before on the day before we were to leave for my uncle’s memorial, I developed a stomach flu and had to stay home. I was able to watch the live stream of the event as I lay miserable in my bed and I posted some thoughts on his death, but my mourning felt incomplete. As I walked in my aunt & uncle’s footsteps across the Three Sisters Islands, taking photographs of the same views that appealed to the three of us, this felt like the true moment of memorialization. While we held different views of God and religion, we were aligned on the majesty and wonder of this special place. This place doesn’t hide from the raw and the rough of life, instead it shows that peace and beauty live intermingled with tumult and destruction.
The Oakland neighborhoods in Pittsburgh’s East End are the home to a number of institutions. Among them are Carlow College, the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt), Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), multiple UPMC hospitals, the Phipps Conservatory (Phipps), the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children, and the Carnegie Institute complex (housing the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History, the main Carnegie Library, and the Carnegie Music Hall). Institutions seem to have a predilection for pedestrian bridges and the ones in Oakland are no exception.
My first encounter with an elevated, enclosed pedestrian bridge was one of the ones in the UPMC hospital complex. The summer I turned six, my grandfather was admitted to the hospital and our trip to Pittsburgh to visit him included many impressionable firsts for me:
First time in a hospital
First time to walk across an enclosed, elevated pedestrian bridge
First time to encounter trick candles on a birthday cake
While I can now appreciate the importance of an enclosed pedestrian bridge to transport patients between facilities in a hospital without having to expose them to the unregulated outside air, I found it an odd and foreign structure when I was six. Decades later, outside of the use for hospital patients, I still find enclosed pedestrian bridges to be odd and foreign. I much prefer getting a breath of fresh air (even if it’s below freezing) to the often stale, manufactured air of these bridges.
Pittsburgh has been redding up for the NFL Draft with increasing fervor over the last several weeks. Among the actions taken was painting a series of railroad trestles that pass over a number of streets downtown. I was prepared to say, “how cool, but why couldn’t we spruce up the pedestrian experience with these trestles while we’re at it?”
However, gearing up to make that compliant, I finally noticed that two of them already have murals, despite my rant a few months ago about the lack of murals to spruce up the pedestrian experience when passing underneath railroad bridges in Pittsburgh compared to other cities. One takes it a step further and also has a series of lights strung over the sidewalk. I don’t know how long the mural or the lights have been in place, but my reaction to the mural this week was “oh yeah, I forgot this was there.”
In my defense, the third of the newly painted trestles I explored this week is the longest and darkest of these three, and the one I’ve walked under the most. It is also one of the top three I pictured when making my compliant in February. The other two being the one where this same railroad crosses over Merchant Street on the North Side and the one carrying the T tracks over First Avenue on the opposite side of downtown. I still maintain that these would benefit from the addition of a mural or other intervention.
In the meantime, I will enjoy the approach to our new black & gold trestles.
Williamsport is a town of just over 25,000 along the upper Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania. I discovered it as an excellent stop-over point to break up the drive home from my relatives in Rutland (where I’ve explored public art, a bridge, covered bridges, and the drawing of municipal boundaries). I enjoy a historic hotel, good restaurants, and a great bookstore (particularly useful when I’ve run out of reading on a trip) whenever I stop in Williamsport.
On a recent trip, I decided to walk the Market Street and Maryland Street Bridges over the Susquehanna while I was there. I took the walk in the morning, leaving my hotel shortly before 8:00 AM, so that I’d be back before checkout time. The sun was already high enough in the sky to be uncomfortably warm and there was very little relief from shade over the bridges and along the river. I spent most of the walk looking forward to when it would be over. A nice riverside trail connected the two bridges. I walked the southern route and frequently wished that the trees came closer to the trail to provide some relief from the sun. As such, I did not take the time to stop and read the informational signs about the region’s history in lumbering or about the birds that might be seen along the river.
It’s a tie! Tower Bridge and Millennium Bridge each received 50% of the votes in the final round.
Thank you for participating in the 2026 Bridge Madness Tournament! I hope you had as much fun voting as I did watching the votes add up.
As a reminder, this year’s tournament featured bridges visited by urbantraipsing in London in 2012. Below are the completed brackets for Bridge Madness 2026. To learn more about the bridges, revisit the introduction which has links to posts on each bridge. Keep scrolling to see past winners and for an opportunity to send me feedback on Bridge Madness.
I’m already brainstorming for Bridge Madness 2027. Hope you come back!
Past Winners
Bridge Madness 2025: National & International Suspension Bridges Winner – Mid-Hudson Bridge
Bridge Madness 2024: Pittsburgh Pedestrian Bridges Winner – East Liberty Station Pedestrian Bridge
Bridge Madness 2023: Pittsburgh River Bridges Winner – Smithfield Street Bridge
In the 2026 Bridge Madness Tournament, 16 bridges that cross the Thames River in London go pier-to-pier in a reader’s choice tournament to pick the best one. This year’s tournament features bridges visited by urbantraipsing on a 2012 bridge-walking expedition.
Results of the Final Four:
Tower Bridge vs. Albert Bridge – 71% to 29%
Millennium Bridge vs. Westminster Bridge – 57% to 43%
Below is the Championship bracket. Remember to vote for your favorite bridge by noon on Saturday, March 28th, and then return on March 29th to see the Champion.
To learn more about the bridges, revisit the introduction which has links to posts on each bridge.
In the 2026 Bridge Madness Tournament, 16 bridges that cross the Thames River in London go pier-to-pier in a reader’s choice tournament to pick the best one. This year’s tournament features bridges visited by urbantraipsing on a 2012 bridge-walking expedition.
Results of the Elite Eight:
Tower Bridge vs. London Bridge – 92% to 8%
Albert Bridge vs. Chelsea Bridge – 92% to 8%
Millennium Bridge vs. Blackfriars Bridge – 55% to 45%
Lambeth Bridge vs. Westminster Bridge – 30% to 70%
Below are the brackets for the Final Four. Remember to vote for one bridge in each bracket by noon on Saturday, March 21st, and then return on March 12th to vote for the Championship.
To learn more about the bridges, revisit the introduction which has links to posts on each bridge.
In the 2026 Bridge Madness Tournament, 16 bridges that cross the Thames River in London go pier-to-pier in a reader’s choice tournament to pick the best one. This year’s tournament features bridges visited by urbantraipsing on a 2012 bridge-walking expedition.
Results of the Sweet Sixteen:
Battersea Railway Bridge vs. Tower Bridge – 24% to 76%
Battersea Bridge vs. London Bridge – 43% to 57%
Albert Bridge vs. Cannon Street Bridge – 100% to 0%
Chelsea Bridge vs. Southwark Bridge – 67% to 33%
Grosvenor Bridge vs. Millennium Bridge – 38% to 62%
Vauxhall Bridge vs. Blackfriars Bridge – 33% to 67%
Lambeth Bridge vs. Waterloo Bridge – 92% to 8%
Westminster Bridge vs. Jubilee Bridges – 58% to 42%
Below are the brackets for the Elite Eight. Remember to vote for one bridge in each bracket by noon on Saturday, March 14th, and then return on March 15th to vote for the Final Four.
To learn more about the bridges, revisit the introduction which has links to posts on each bridge.
In the 2026 Bridge Madness Tournament, 16 bridges that cross the Thames River in London go pier-to-pier in a reader’s choice tournament to pick the best one. This year’s tournament features bridges visited by urbantraipsing on a 2012 bridge-walking expedition. Below are the brackets for the Sweet Sixteen. Remember to vote for one bridge in each bracket by noon on Saturday, March 7th, and then return on March 8th to vote for the Elite Eight.
To learn more about the bridges, revisit the introduction which has links to posts on each bridge.
