The Saint Croix Crossing
Near Stillwater, Minnesota
Just south of Stillwater, a sweeping modern bridge carries the highway across the Saint Croix River valley. This is the Saint Croix Crossing, and it opened to traffic on August second, two thousand seventeen, the same day the old lift bridge closed to cars. It is what engineers call an extradosed bridge, a hybrid design that sits between a girder bridge and a cable stayed bridge, and it is the longest of its type in the United States.
Five great piers rise from the river, each carrying twin towers, ten towers in all, that fan out cables to hold the deck about one hundred fifty feet above the water. Getting it built took decades of fighting, because the Saint Croix is a federally protected wild and scenic river, and opponents argued that a big new bridge would spoil one of the most beautiful stretches of water in the Midwest. A court halted the project in two thousand ten, and only an act of Congress, signed by President Obama in two thousand twelve, allowed it to proceed.
To make peace with the river, the plan preserved the old lift bridge as a trail and added miles of new pathway, so that the two bridges together now form a scenic loop across the valley.
