The Reedy Creek Pedestrian Bridge
The Reedy Creek Pedestrian Bridge stretches across the 440 Beltline carrying the House Creek Greenway. The three steel arches join the trail network on the grounds of the North Carolina Museum of Art with the rest of the greenway, which follows the outer perimeter of the Meredith College campus.
At night the structure is beautifully lit with white spotlights, which run along each side of the pathway, and blue lights that give a glow to the tops of each stone abutment. Sadly, the trail and the bridge are closed after dark, likely due to the safety risk caused by the lack of adequate lighting along the rest of the greenway.
On April 16, 2005, the North Carolina Museum of Art celebrated the opening of the new Reedy Creek Pedestrian Bridge, which links the Museum Park to the Capital Area Greenway System. The new bicycle and pedestrian bridge serves as a tangible symbol of the Museum’s bond to the community. Spanning I-440, it is the longest pedestrian bridge in North Carolina. Its design was inspired by the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Sydney, Australia. The bridge features triple steel arches, and will feature dramatic lighting in the near future. The bridge is 660 feet long and 55 feet high at its highest point.
With its curving, grey steel arches and downright beautiful lighting scheme the Reedy Creek Bridge is arguably the largest piece of three dimensional art that Raleigh has to offer.
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10/20/2008
Beware the Mereidth Campus Police who will actually lock you onto the bridge when they close the gates at dusk, unless, you tell them you are suffering from a diabetic comma, and please, would you not lock the gate with me standing 3′ feet from it.
10/20/2008
Great Photos! I’ve always wanted to head out and get some nice night shots of this. You did a great job of capturing it.
10/20/2008
Awesome shots! Your talent to make the mundane appear extraordinary never ceases to amaze me! The pedestrian bridge across the beltline reminds me of the old time railroad trestles one sees along the industrial corridor between D.C. and NYC
10/21/2008
Agreed with Kitch and Raleigh Boy – the vertically-oriented shot looking straight down the bridge is simply amazing. It is slightly disorienting, even though I know exactly what it is. I’ve wanted to peer off of this bridge at night for at least a couple years now, and now I get to see what it looks like!
Great work.
10/21/2008
“Beware the Mereidth Campus Police”
No big surprise there. I’m sure they spend a lot of time looking for an opportunity to show who’s boss.
But I doubt they’re as bad as York Security’s wannabe cops at Cameron Village.
11/04/2008
I’m not quite sure where this myth about the “Sydney Harbour Bridge” connection came from or why it’s being perpetuated… While there may be a passing resemblance in the arches, there was not a conscious effort that I know of to have the design resemble anything else.
The project was fundamentally a basic off-the-shelf box truss pedestrian bridge with the arches added as an aesthetic element. The art deco design of the bridge bents and the plynths on top came from the NCMA staff.
The City is working on the next greenway link in this area: the House Creek Greenway. This will connect the Reedy Creek Greenway to the Crabtree Creek Greenway parallel to I-440. Once that’s in place, the risk of getting locked down by Meredith’s security folks will no longer be a problem.