JF Ptak Science Books LLC Post 136
This image (from the Illustrated London News of 10 July, 1909) asks an unlikely question, and one that I've never heard asked before of London: are the London bridges too far apart? The "new bridge" which was to be built was scheduled to be located between Southwark and Blackfriars bridges (for what looks like today to be a fabulous deal of 1.5 million pounds, or about 6 million USD, or about 95 millions dollars today), and would've been about where the Millenium Bridge is now. The bridge would be 80 feet wide and carry a double deck of trams, running on a diagonal with the access nearly at Blackfirars. I'm not terribly sure how to interpret the question, because the answer seems a little obvious to me, what with 14 bridges on just one side of the Tower Bridge in just a few miles.
[Image greatly expandable.]
I'm not so sure what the engineers were expected to do, short of tunneling a great length of river and delivering land on top of it.
This reminds me somewhat of a report that I saw some years ago about the plans for Rock Creek Park and Parkway in Washington, D.C. The park runs roughly north-south in the top center half of the city, and around 1890 the Federal government was trying to figure out how to best multi-task the area for parkland and roadway. One (incredible) plan called for the creek, which in many places is bounded by some pretty steep embankments (25-75 feet or so) and extends about 8 miles north of downtown, to be filled in, leveled off, and paved over. Now that, dear readers, would've been a lot of dirt. The final plan was perfectly fine and had a series of small roads snaking their way through the park, making it one of the nicest rides (Central Park-like) of any major metropolitan cities in North America.
Bridges on the Thames from Teddington to Tower Bridge:
Richmond Bridge
Richmond Rail Bridge
Twickenham Bridge
Kew Bridge
Kew Rail Bridge
Chiswick Bridge
Barnes Railway Bridge
Hammersmith Suspension Bridge
Putney Bridge
Fulham Railway Bridge
Battersea Railway Bridge
Wandsworth Bridge
Battersea Bridge
Albert Bridge
Chelsea Bridge
Grosvenor Railway Bridge
Vauxhall Bridge
Lambeth Bridge
Westminster Bridge
Hungerford Bridge
Waterloo Bridge
Blackfriars Bridge
Blackfriars Rail Bridge
Millennium Bridge
Southwark Bridge
Cannon Street Rail Bridge
London Bridge
Tower Bridge
Queen Elizabeth II Bridge
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