The City's Bridge Dilemma

The bridge question will in the near future be an important one in Tacoma and it is time for the people to be considering it carefully. During the early boom, Tacoma erected many large bridges. Timber was plentiful then and naturally wooden bridges went up. But it is hard to get good bridge timbers now even in this lumber land and the price is high. Those old bridges are tumbling down. They must be replaced and the problem to be solved is how. It will cost into hundreds of thousands of dollars to put up wooden structures now and they will last but a few years and then the city will face the same old question. It will cost possibly three-quarters of a million to put up steel bridges all over. They will last longer than wood but soon will have to go to the junk heap also. It will cost possibly a million to build the number of concrete bridges needed, but they will last forever. There will be no repairs, no painting and no danger of collapse. Besides they can be made a thing of beauty while steel or wooden bridges are an eyesore and a blot on the landscape. City officials who week after week have to pay the big repair bills on the temporary bridges are a unit for the concrete permanent bridge.