If you’ve ever driven across the Gervais Street bridge, which connects downtown Columbia and West Columbia over the Congaree River, and tensed up from the tight lanes, you’re not alone.
Built in the late 1920s, the quarter-mile bridge was built more than four decades before the enactment of the National Bridge Inspection Standards regulations. The iconic go-between, immortalized on postcards and hand-painted prints around Columbia, is narrower than what modern bridge design standards recommend.
When construction on the bridge was completed in June 1928, it had the widest roadway in the state. Now, its lanes are each about four feet shorter in width than is recommended for bridges built today…