Mt. Elliott Street Bridge

[MicrosoftFan]

Heading up to Warren today I decided to take a different route. Ended up taking Mt. Elliott up to Mound. Driving there I noticed the massive high bridge running over the railroad tracks. Seemed way too big for Mt. Elliott- I was expecting a dinky underpass like Conant. Could it possibly have been designed to carry Mound Road's expressway? Davidson extension? Was proximity to then-busy City airport? As always, interested to hear your thoughts. Thanks.

[Ray1936]

A Polish gentleman in Hamtramck heard about Mt. Elliott, so he tried to build a ski lift.

[MicrosoftFan]

Seems legit

[mtburb]

In the summer of 1974, the city of Hamtramack awarded the city of Detroit with a ski slope at the end of Mound Road and the long, tedious process of converting Harold Street into a freeway offramp in exchange for allowing Penn Central to accommodate the entrance of the Asian automakers into North America by teaming up with Grand Trunk Western in closing their Mount Elliott railroad crossing permanently, resulting in great excitement from the surrounding neighborhood, whose residents more often had to stop at a lowered gate than just simply driving clear across the tracks. The result is the Mount Elliott Street Bridge you cross over today.

Fake story! XD

[Scottathew]

More seriously, I would guess that it has to do with the large amount of rail underneath. At one point I counted 47 rail lines and 1 road just southwest of the bridge. There's a lot of industry in the area as well as the old Detroit Public Schools supply depot.

[dodgemain]

This is how it was. You could never cross. This image is from 1967 thanks to NETR.

[Honky Tonk]

A Polish gentleman in Hamtramck heard about Mt. Elliott, so he tried to build a ski lift.

Same guy that Kayaked down Grand River......

[MicrosoftFan]

I can't tell if this ski lift thing is real or not... sarcasm puzzles me when it's over the internet.

[EastsideAl]

This is how it was. You could never cross. This image is from 1967 thanks to NETR.

Exactly. At several times of day that grade crossing on Mt. Elliott was a major bottleneck, especially for truck and worker traffic to/from Dodge Main and the plants on Huber and Lynch Rd., as well as the plants further up Mound Rd. The old street pattern was also inefficient, with Mound starting at Caniff, necessitating not only crossing the rail yard, but negotiating a sort of slalom course to get to Mound.

The delays created for truck traffic [[as truck transportation supplanted rail in the '60s & '70s), and particularly for traffic between various Chrysler facilities near Mt. Elliott and Mound, was the main reason that bridge was built where and how it was built, connecting Mt. Elliott to Mound. With so many of those facilities now closed, gone, or sold off, I think it's hard to conceive today just how much traffic once moved through there and why such a big bridge seemed necessary..

[MicrosoftFan]

Now that there's nothing there we can criss-cross the east side with Mt. Elliott and Lynch Road expressways... I always wanted 10 lanes on Mt. Elliott.

[jackie5275]

In the summer of 1974, the city of Hamtramack awarded the city of Detroit with a ski slope at the end of Mound Road......

Which is where the Dodge Main Ski Team used to practice.