Photo: #The Gateway Monument atop the new 35W bridge will mark the spot where drivers will start to pass over the waters of the Mississippi River.
Photo: #The new 35W bridge is set to open Thursday morning.
Photo: #Workers from the Flatiron construction company rest on a guardrail and watch Monday morning's press conference.
Photo: #Flowers were left on the guardrail of the new 35W bridge, an apparent tribute to those who lost their lives during last year's bridge collapse.
Photo: #Governor Tim Pawlenty announces the opening of the new 35W bridge at a Monday morning press conference.
Photo: #The Crosstown/I-35W interchange is in the middle of a multi-year rehab project. As part of that, all lanes of the Crosstown (Hwy. 62) will be closed this weekend.
Photo: #Kevin Gutknecht from the Department of Transportation points across the river to the other side of the span. The new bridge has a redundant design to prevent the kind of failure that brought the original bridge down.
Photo: #Construction on the new Interstate 35W bridge is nearing completion.
Photo: #The Interstate 35W bridge is nearing completion, just over a year after the original span collapsed on August 1, 2007.
Larger view
The Gateway Monument atop the new 35W bridge will mark the spot where drivers will start to pass over the waters of the Mississippi River. (MPR Photo/Bill Alkofer)
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The I-35W bridge reopens

The new I-35W bridge is open to traffic, just 13 months after the old one collapsed into the Mississippi River.

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The I-35W bridge reopens

Historic and handsome, but could new bridge have been more?

by Tom Crann, Minnesota Public Radio
September 15, 2008

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Minneapolis — Bridge buffs are lamenting a lost opportunity in the building of the I-35W bridge. Some, like historian Denis Gardner, say the new bridge was a chance to add something truly distinctive to the Minneapolis riverscape. Instead, Gardner calls the new bridge merely "handsome."

Denis Gardner is the author of "Wood, Concrete, Stone and Steel: Minnesota's Historic Bridges." He joined Minnesota Public Radio's Tom Crann on one of the state's oldest bridges -- the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis -- to talk about the state's newest.

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