Where the Sidewalk Doesn't End

Take the skyway

I've blogged before about the vortex of converging onramps where the LIE meets the westbound BQE just before the Kosciuszko Bridge. But I left out one lane, the pedestrian skybridge that begins on Mount Laurel Avenue on the west side of the BQE, skirts Calvary Cemetary, crosses two lanes of traffic coming off the eastbound LIE, does a graceful loop in the triangle between these lanes and the 43rd Street onramp, and finally comes to earth at the sidewalk that passes under the LIE to connect with 51st Avenue (and bewilderingly, Mount Laurel Avenue). You can get an overhead look here.

Dark Star Park, Nancy Holt (1984)

As I sat in traffic waiting to get on the BQE, I wondered why we haven't used this triangle for public art, perhaps following the model of Arlington's Dark Star Park (lot of Deadheads down there). Then I realized, the skybridge was a work of public transportation art, a monument to the survival of the pedestrian in the era of the expressway.

 I've never seen anyone use it.