History
During 1931, Wayne County converted the Michigan Central Railroad's defunct rail bridge crossing the Trenton Channel into the Wayne County Bridge for use by vehicular, bike, and pedestrian traffic. Canada Southern Bridge Company, a subsidiary of the Canada Southern Railroad Company, built the rail bridge in 1873. A number of the original support piers and other parts of the bridge served as the foundation for the Wayne County Bridge.
The rail tracks across the island were replaced by a roadway that is now known as Grosse Ile Parkway. The Wayne County Bridge is commonly called the "Free Bridge" by Grosse Ile residents because of the absence of a user fee toll for crossing. Today, about three-quarters of the vehicle traffic going to and from Grosse Ile travels over the Wayne County Bridge while one-quarter crosses the Grosse Ile Toll Bridge.
Wayne County completely closed their bridge to vehicle traffic from May 2, 2007 until December 21, 2007 to enable the replacement of the bridge deck and related major repairs. The county last replaced the bridge deck in 1979. During much of the 1979 closure period, the County Bridge was open for one lane of traffic. At the times when the span was completely closed, the only way for vehicles to travel to and from the island was across the Grosse Ile Toll Bridge.
Read more about this topic: Wayne County Bridge
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The principal office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”
—Tacitus (c. 55c. 120)
“As History stands, it is a sort of Chinese Play, without end and without lesson.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (18381918)
“Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of Gods property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)