Bridge lifts and Fleet Week, 2015

So, this morning at my break, I walked around on the rooftop garden for a bit of exercise, and I noticed the Broadway Bridge up, then I noticed the Steel Bridge up. That meant the US Navy ships in town for Fleet Week, a part of the Portland Rose Festival, were leaving Portland as scheduled. I took this photo, hoping to be able to label it accordingly and use it on the blog. The two bridges are more than two miles from my work building. I'm surprised that I got decent photos with my iPhone 5, zoomed in. The labels on the photos don't show up as well as I'd like, but I'm too tired to fool with them again.



At my afternoon break, I took this photo for comparison purposes.



Also for comparison, here's a photo that I took of the Broadway Bridge from the MAX Yellow Line while on the Steel Bridge. The Broadway Bridge is a Rall-type bascule bridge spanning the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, United States, built in 1913.



Also for comparison, here's a photo that I took of the Steel Bridge in 2011 when I got to be on a boat with the ships came in for Fleet Week. See the wavy looking bridge behind it, close to the bottom of the Steel Bridge? That's the Broadway Bridge which is north of the Steel Bridge. The Steel Bridge is a through truss, double-deck vertical-lift bridge across the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, United States, opened in 1912. Its lower deck carries railroad and bicycle/pedestrian traffic, while the upper deck carries road traffic (on the Pacific Highway West No. 1W, former Oregon Route 99W) and light rail (MAX), making the bridge one of the most multimodal in the world. It is the only double-deck bridge with independent lifts in the world and the second oldest vertical-lift bridge in North America, after the nearby Hawthorne Bridge. The bridge links the Rose Quarter and Lloyd District in the east to Old Town Chinatown neighborhood in the west.



During Fleet Week, 2011, I got to be on a boat on the river, taking loads of photos. Here's one of the completely open Broadway Bridge with one of the ships passing through it during the bridge lift. This is how a bascule bridge looks when it is open. The boat to its left is one of the River Patrol boats, part of the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office.



And here's the Steel Bridge with one of the ships passing through it, headed to dock for Fleet Week. This is how a double-deck, vertical lift bridge looks when the ship going through means that both decks have to be lifted. Sometimes only the lower deck has to be lifted, when the ship is much shorter than this one.