One unforgettable moment of the city's historic 2008 flood came when
rail cars loaded with rock crashed into the Cedar River on the south
edge of downtown, along with the bridge that the laden cars were
designed to keep in place.
Sufficiently dramatic was the event — and even more so was the extent
of destruction throughout the city — that many missed the collapse into
the river of part of a second bridge, an abandoned rail bridge a little
farther downstream.
Pieces of the second bridge's steel span and the bridge's piers are
still in place, and Steve Sovern said the remains of this one-time Rock
Island Railroad bridge is an “eyesore” at the ready for a fix.
“I ride my bike virtually every day, and I ride by this sleeping
giant in the Cedar River,” Sovern said. “I've heard talk of a trail
bridge across the river as something people want, and it seems to me
it's an idea whose time has come.”
He and a group of other property owners, businesses, residents and
interested parties known as the Southside Investment Board in New
Bohemia now have the broken bridge in their sights.
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