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Quintana Swing Bridge :: Spanning the Intercoastal Canal between mainland Texas and Quintana Island, Quintana, Texas, United States :: Glass Steel and Stone
Built: 1957 Renovated: 2003 - Decommissioned Type: Demolished Location: Spanning the Intercoastal Canal between mainland Texas and Quintana Island, Quintana, United States
L ike a flamingo, this bridge was as graceful as it was odd-looking. In utility, it could have been conceived during a crisis. But it was the solution to that crisis that brought ingenuity to life. The Quintana swing bridge connected tiny Quintana Island with mainland Texas across the Intercoastal Canal. The island is small, so it does not have lots room for long ramps to get over the channel. The channel clearance must be 73-feet in order to allow large vessels to pass. If you can’t make the island move farther out to sea, you can instead make the bridge move out of the way of the ships. This was the chosen solution. When marine traffic approaches, which is quite frequently, the bridge deck simply floated down the channel a little bit to get out of the way. Once the ship has passed, a system of cables and pulleys drew the bridge deck back to the ramps and the bridge was made whole again. For years the people of Quintana maintained a love-hate relationship with their bridge. Sea traffic outnumbered land traffic, so cars sometimes had to wait 45 minutes or more for a chance to cross the channel. That inconvenience kept the island quiet, its population low, and its lifestyle serene. But at the same time it caused problems for emergency traffic. Ambulances, fire trucks, and police cruisers had to yield to passing ships. Moreover, a simple trip to the grocery store, already a bit of a haul, could take an additional hour waiting to get off and then back on the island. By the late 1990’s the Texas Department of Transportation had come up with a feasible plan to add a bridge to Quintana Island. Backers said the bridge will be cheaper than the swing bridge, estimated to cost $400,000.00 per year to operate and maintain. But isolationists said it was just a ploy by developers to get their hands on another pristine part of the Texas coast, and money for the $9,000,000.00 bridge would be better spent on other projects like upgrading the area’s hurricane evacuation road, currently only one lane wide. We have been told that there are only three swing bridges in Texas and a handful in North America. If you know where the others are, please let us know.
24 March, 2003 - The swing bridge swung for the last time as the Texas Department of Transportation opened a new fixed bridge linking Quintana Island with the mainland. The swing bridge has been decommissioned.
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