The main campus of the University of Massachusetts-Lowell is situated along both sides of the Merrimack River. There are lots of old road bridges spanning over the river around Lowell. What the UML campus and the city of Lowell needs is a unique bridge, not any road bridge but a pedestrian bridge.
What is a unique bridge you might ask? A unique bridge is an attractive and distinctive-looking designed bridge.
Case in point:
In England along the River Tynes, in the City of Newcastle, there is a cool looking bridge. It’s named the Gateshead Millennium Bridge. It connects the town of Gateshead, located on the southern side of the River Tyne, to the City of Newcastle located on the northern side of the bridge.
What’s unique about the Gateshead Millennium Bridge is not that it’s just a pedestrian & bicycle footbridge. It’s also known as a tilt bridge. The bridge spans low, almost about street level. The bridge has an arch-shaped span over the River Tyne. The bridge is popularly used by both tourists and locals. There is some river traffic, when at times, the Gateshead Millennium Bridge has ‘open up’ to allow boat traffic to pass thru. This is done by tilting the bridge (see accompanying photos). Both ends of the bridge pivot the spanning bridge upwards, to allow more clearance.
The Gateshead Millennium Bridge, in my opinion (IMO), is a very good-looking bridge!
This type of bridge design could be ‘too far’ out of the box for any UML board members or any ultra-conservative politician(s) to approve for the UML campus. But if ever the Commonwealth of Massachusetts decides to put a pedestrian bridge on the campus of UML, wouldn’t it be cool to have a unique bridge, like the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, for all (students & school staff) to use and to admire?
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