Great Bridge Bridge

There is a town in Chesapeake called Great Bridge, a town that has existed and persevered since pre-Revolutionary times. The town is so named for a long-gone bridge that once crossed the southern branch of the Elizabeth River. This, as an engineer, excites me. In fact, there was a brief Revolutionary War battle fought at the bridge (appropriately remembered as the Battle of Great Bridge), and now the road whose origins trace to the highway that crossed the bridge is known as Battlefield Blvd. Cool stuff, right?

Well, it ends there. The Chesapeake-Albemarle Canal, which connects the Chesapeake Bay to the Albemarle Sound, was built as part of the Intracoastal Waterway, thus starving the southern Elizabeth River of its feedwater and negating the need for a "Great Bridge." However, they still needed a bridge to cross the narrow canal.

Currently, we have a beautiful Scherzer rolling lift bascule bridge crossing the canal. It is sleek, modern, and truly is the centerpiece of the little Chesapeake hamlet. Unfortunately, this bridge came after the town, so no one feels right calling it "the Great Bridge." It is awkwardly known as "the Great Bridge Bridge." So, whenever the city needs to work on the bridge, the announcements say "Great Bridge Bridge Closed." On electronic highway marquees, it looks like the sign developed a stutter. So this little town, gloriously named for a civil engineering feat that had its own glorious history, now somewhat ingloriously refers to its landmark with a repetitive term that leaves my spell checker begging to delete the extraneous bridges.