Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country
Founded 05-05-05
April 10, 2008 issue
Historic Character of Goshen Bridge To Be Lost Forever with Imminent Repairs
“There is no other bridge like it on the Blue Ridge Parkway,” said Gary Johnson, chief of planning and professional services for the Blue Ridge Parkway. “We will be losing an important detail and driving experience with the bridge repairs.”
If you look underneath the Goshen Bridge at Bamboo Road and Milepost 286.3, you will see huge rock parapets rising nearly 100 feet from Goshen Creek, reminiscent of the great aqueducts of Rome but on a much smaller scale. While not a common visitor viewpoint, inspecting the bridge from below will leave you with a sense of awe—a testimony to the great engineering marvel that exemplifies this unique national park.
The Goshen Creek Bridge was constructed in 1948. Approaching and crossing it in a vehicle is an understatement, thanks to its meticulous landscape design, approach grading, heavy stone masonry walls and gently curved curbing guard walls.
The design element that will get a complete makeover is the vertical picket rails that are integrated into bridge deck concrete and curbing. The reason: Engineers of the Federal Highways Administration, the agency that holds the purse strings for the project, no longer deem the picket rails crashworthy. Interestingly, in 40 years, there has never been an accident on this bridge to test their crashworthiness.
Fortunately, the Parkway is in a strict category of veneration and is eligible for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places and for designation as a National Historic Landmark. The Federal Highways Administration has to treat the Parkway with white gloves, but their engineers still get their say.
The compromise, mitigated with the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office, is an extensive recordation project. At least for the purposes of history, the current bridge will be extensively photographed and a video taken of the bridge approaching it for from both directions at 10, 25 and 45 miles per hour. These records will be retained in the archives of the Blue Ridge Parkway, the North Carolina Division of Archives and History/State Historic Preservation Office, and Eastern Federal Land Highway Division office in Sterling, Va.
The bridge reconstruction project will include a new concrete deck, replacement of the historic bridge rail system, removal of asphalt bridge deck paving including replacement with a modified concrete overlay, and the addition of a new modern guardrail.
Find more information about the project, including archival photographs, at www.virtualblueridge.com/parkway/history/goshen-creek-bridge.asp.