LITTLE ROCK — Pulaski County’s Big Dam Bridge was named Thursday along with the Golden Gate Bridge and the George Washington Bridge linking New York City and New Jersey as one of the “top 10 bridge travel sites” in the U.S. and Canada by the Society of American Travel Writers.
Describing the Big Dam Bridge, which extends over the top of Murray Lock and Dam to connect Little Rock to North Little Rock, the travel writers group called it “the longest pedestrian bridge in North America - it has never seen car traffic.”
The longest pedestrian bridge?
It’s true that, at 4,226 feet, the Big Dam Bridge is believed by Pulaski County officials to be the longest pedestrian bridge built expressly for that purpose.
But at least one other pedestrian and bicycle bridge - the Chain of Rocks Bridge in St. Louis - is longer, at 5,253 feet.
That bridge was built in 1929 as part of U.S. 66. After being closed for decades, it reopened to pedestrian and bicycle traffic only in 1999.
“I guess they forgot about us,” said Anne Rivers Mack, director of Trailnet, a nonprofit group that manages the Chain of Rocks bridge.
The Chain of Rocks Bridge didn’t make the list.
The travel writer group’s description of the Big Dam Bridge also jilts North Little Rock, saying “the two bridge ends connect portions of Little Rock, Ark.”
Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines, a champion of the $12.8 million bridge, completed in 2006, said he thinks it’s accurate to call it the longest bicycle and pedestrian bridge in the country.
“You put a sidewalk on a bridge for highways - that’s not a pedestrian and bicycle bridge,” Villines said.
He added that the Big Dam Bridge is “the longest pedestrian and bicycle bridge, we think, that’s ever been built.”
The travel writers group released the list in honor of the 75th anniversary of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, which began carrying traffic on May 28, 1937.
Bobby Zafarnia, a spokesman for the group, said the list was compiled by members of the trade group’s marketing committee, which includes publicists from convention and visitors bureaus across the country. He said the group culled publicly available information to identify bridges with unique distinctions.
The group describes the George Washington Bridge, for instance, as the world’s busiest bridge for car traffic.
The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana is described as the longest bridge in the United States, at 24 miles.
Describing the SkyTrail Bridge in the Canadian town of Outlook in Saskatchewan, the travel writers group says it is the “longest pedestrian bridge in Canada.”
The group notes the span was “built 100 years ago to serve as a railway bridge” and was converted to a pedestrian bridge in 2003.
Zafarnia said what the group wrote about the Big Dam Bridge is accurate “when you read the entire description.”
“I’m not going to quibble over a grammar point on it,” Zafarnia said. “It’s what we thought was a fair and accurate representation and also part of how the bridge puts itself out there.”
Gretchen Hall, president of the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the bureau didn’t have any input on the list and is careful to make sure the information it uses in its marketing materials is accurate.
She called the travel writer group’s description a “minor discrepancy.”
“To be on this list with some of the other ones that are on it - that’s a tremendous honor,” Hall said.
Villines, who didn’t know about the list until contacted by a reporter Thursday, expressed a similar sentiment.
“It just further publicizes our communities and the opportunities that are here,” he said.
The travel writers group noted that the Big Dam Bridge has been the site of weddings and full-moon walking tours and has a foundation that promotes it as a resource for fitness.
The other bridges on the list are the Royal Gorge Bridge in Canon City, Colo., described as the highest suspension bridge in the U.S.; the Smolen-Gulf and West Liberty bridges in Ashtabula County, Colo., described, respectively, as the country’s longest and shortest covered bridges; a series of bridges in the Florida Keys, which are linked by the Overseas Highway; Utah’s Rainbow Bridge, described as the world’s largest natural bridge; and the Confederation Bridge, which joins the provinces of Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick in Canada and is described as the world’s largest bridge crossing ice-covered water.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 05/18/2012