So, I posted on Sunday about the direction my project was taking — a fountain in an area near the old city. Monday evening (about 7p), I finally got a chance to talk with my instructor about the project and he nixed the idea. Apparently, the project might be feasible somewhere else, but it is completely inappropriate for Sanitago. Who knew?

Anyway, grasping for something to work on, I remembered a pedestrian bridge about 4 km from the center of the city that is in really bad shape and I noted that it might be a suitable project. My instructor agreed.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough data on the bridge to work on it, so I quickly left the studio and walked the 45+ minutes out to the bridge to sketch a little and take some photos.

I didn’t get back to the dorms (which are on the other side of the city center from the bridge) until almost 10p, so I ate dinner and went to bed pretty exhausted.

A few things to note about the bridge:

• It is right at the edge of Santiago proper (on the city line, I believe) and sits at a place where there is a pretty clear transition between suburban Santiago (which doesn’t mean exactly the same thing that it does in the US) and urban Santiago.
• It is a 150cm (about 4.5 ft) wide wooden bridge in very bad condition. (See the photos for just how bad.)
• The pedestrian bridge is actually two bridges attached (tacked on) to two car bridges that cross the highway and railroad tracks.
• The bridges are supported by a center beam of some sort, but are mostly just wooden planks spaced about 1.5 cm apart open to what is below.
• The pedestrian portion is separated from the traffic lanes by a guard rail.
• Cars go pretty fast across the bridges — I’m guessing upwards of 70-80 km/hr.

This combination of factors results in a pretty poor experience for the pilgrims: the cars whizzing by are unsettling, the bad condition and spacing of the planks makes walking a bit difficult (especially if you are using poles), and, if you are afraid of heights, the openness of the bridges to what’s below can make them scary to cross.

So, all in all, the bridge is a worthy project and I’ve boiled down the issue to three priorities:

1. Create a good surface for pilgrims and citizens to walk or ride bicycles across the highway and rail tracks.
2. Create a sense of safety from the traffic also crossing the highway and rail tracks and from the traffic below.
3. Make some sort of appropriate transition between the suburbs and city of Santiago without distracting from the camino.