New Deal Accomplishment: Over 190,000 projects to build, improve, and maintain bridges

Above: Between 1933 and 1939, the Public Works Administration (PWA) provided funds for 388 bridges across America. Many of them were large and magnificent, like the North Bend Bridge in Oregon (shown above). This bridge is still in operation and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. Be sure to see the fantastic 8-minute documentary, "In Landscape Harmony: New Deal Bridges for the Oregon Coast." Photo from the National Archives.

Above: A PWA-funded drawbridge in California, connecting Oakland to Alameda. Notice the gear teeth, to the left, used to raise and lower the bridge (see next photo). This bridge was completed in 1935. Many bridges of yesteryear were visually engaging and inspirational (expansive metalwork, ornamentation, covered bridges, sculptures). Photo from the National Archives.

Above: The Oakland-to-Alameda drawbridge appears to still exist today. This is a screenshot from the YouTube video, "Park Street Bridge," which shows the bridge in operation. Image used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: Civil Works Administration (CWA) workers building a bridge over the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, in Washington, DC. In his book, Long-Range Public Investment, Robert Leighninger Jr. notes 7,000 CWA projects to build or improve bridges from 1933 to 1934. Photo from: Henry G. Alsberg, America Fights the Depression: A Photographic Record of the Civil Works Administration, New York: Coward-McCann Publishers, 1934, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: Between 1933 and 1942, young men in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) worked on 57,424 projects to build or maintain bridges for vehicles, horses, and hikers. The bridges shown above are somewhere in the South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida area. Photos from: Civilian Conservation Corps, Annual of District 'F', Fourth Corps Area (Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Direct Advertising Company, 1937), used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: Another CCC bridge project (unknown location). Photo from a March 1937 WPA report on  New Deal public works progress.

Above: A beautiful little bridge on the campus of the University of Colorado Boulder, built by the Work Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), 1935. It appears that the bridge still exists today, and a graduate of the university wrote to the Coloradoan newspaper (Fort Collins), "Nothing can match the beauty of Varsity Bridge and Lake. I used to love to just go there and let it touch my soul. I was always amazed at the solitude in the middle of such a large campus.” Yep, that's what good architecture and the beauty of nature and landscape can do (something that modern America frequently forgets). Between 1934 and 1935, FERA workers built 6,957 bridges and improved 9,633 existing bridges. Photo from the FERA Work Division's final report.

Above: Another beautiful stone bridge, this one by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in Sierra County, New Mexico, ca. 1938. Between 1935 and 1943, WPA workers built 77,965 new bridges across America, and completed 46,046 other projects to reconstruct or improve existing bridges. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: The South Side Bridge in Charleston, West Virginia, completed by WPA workers in 1936-1937 (see, e.g., "Dedication of Bridge is Held: WPA Officials, Other Cite City Progress at Ceremonies," The Charleston Daily Mail, October 27, 1936, p. 1). An information plaque on the bridge states: "Cooperation of the federal government, through the Works Progress Administration, made it possible for the people of the city of Charleston to receive this bridge, after all other apparent sources had failed... Its construction gave work to the otherwise unemployed men of this community." The bridge is still in use today. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: The WPA-built Pauley Bridge in Pikesville, Kentucky. This is a screenshot from the excellent 7-minute documentary, "The Historic Pauley Bridge." Image used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: A WPA-built pedestrian bridge, with a great waterfront view! Photo from a June 30, 1940 WPA progress report.

Above: WPA workers building a bridge - part of a farm-to-market road project in Dickson County, Tennessee, March 1936. The old road was impassable during periods of heavy rain, and prevented farmers from getting their produce and goods to points of sale. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: Young women observe the progress of a WPA bridge project on Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, New York, May 1936. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: This comes from a longer newspaper article in The Sunday Times (New Brunswick, New Jersey), November 26, 1939, p. 5. Across the nation, workers in the New Deal's National Youth Administration (NYA) completed 9,973 projects to build or improve bridges. Image from newspaper.com, used here for educational and non-commercials purposes.

Above: Balboa Bridge, constructed by the Puerto Rico Emergency Relief Administration (PRERA), between 1934 and 1935. PRERA administered funds provided by the New Deal's Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). Later, from about 1935-1941, the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA, another New Deal program) continued this type of infrastructure work, for example, "In some areas, such as on the road leading to Barrio Real in Patillas--not far from where [Hurricane] San Felipe made landfall--the PRRA built reinforced concrete bridges to replace ones that had been previously destroyed" (Geoff G. Burrows, The Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration: New Deal Public Works, Modernization, and Colonial Reform, University of Florida Press, 2024, p. 111). Photo from the National Archives.

 

New Deal Bridges

If we add up bridge projects carried out by the PWA, CCC, WPA, and NYA (see statistical note below), we see that the New Deal had over 190,000 projects to build, improve, and maintain bridges.

In its 2025 Infrastructure Report Card, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the nation's 623,000+ bridges a "C" letter grade, and estimated that it will take $373 billion in funding "to bring the nation's bridges into a state of good repair over the next 10 years." However, considering our decades-long obsession with tax cuts and mega-yachts, instead of public funding, it seems unlikely that we will maintain our bridges to that degree. But we could, if we wanted to, by creating and implementing a modern New Deal.

(Statistical note: Due to a variety of factors--such as (a) single work projects that spanned over the course of multiple work-relief agencies, (b) more than one agency working on the same project at the same time, and (c) inadequate reporting--calculating the total New Deal work product for any category of projects can range from mildly challenging to extraordinarily difficult. I therefore use several methods--for example, leaving out the work product of one or more agencies--to keep the estimates modest, as opposed to overblown. My earliest blog posts go into these difficulties and methods in more detail.)