Hidden behind a hospital and a massive shopping mall, a tiny road dies at a park. You can still see the old light standards continuing down. I had some time to kill on a Saturday afternoon, so I decided to stop and check it out; having a camera with me, I naturally brought it along for the hike.
Down at the base of the road, I was drawn out onto one of the side trails that ran along a river bank; following it around, I noticed something in the distance; it looked like a bridge, but not a bridge one would expect; it looked like an old road bridge.
I moved closer to the bridge, sticking to the river; it looked old, concrete with stone pilings on either bank.
The bridge was only a single lane and happened to continue the road that I had followed initially, this was a bowstring truss (I remembered that from the Bridge project I had in Grade 5), and it was old; that much was clear, such details are not put onto most modern bridges, functionality before form eh? At least there was a plaque to date the bridge, 1909.
Some research on The King’s Highway website pulls up the following. The bridge was built as a bowstring truss bridge in 1909, the first such bridge in Ontario, and the road I was walking on…was the Middle Road, yes, the road that in the 1930s was converted into Ontario’s first limited access freeway. The bridge, however, only served one year on the Middle road before the highway was realigned, and a more significant (and less attractive) bridge was constructed.