The Brockport Pedestrian Bridge is part of New York State’s “Reimagine the Canals” initiative, which envisions the Erie Canal as a recreational infrastructure that can improve the quality of life for New Yorkers. Its design seeks to honor the canal’s legacy, in particular Brockport’s historic Guard Gate 12—originally designed as part of a hydrologic control system to mitigate flood risks and facilitate canal maintenance.
The bridge creates a new crossing across the Erie Canal, connecting the SUNY Brockport campus on the south side of the canal to the 750-mile Empire State Trail on the north and resulting in the new “Brockport Loop,” a 6-mile recreational trail. The surrounding master plan stitches a web of cultural spaces and integrates the bridge into Brockport’s urban and ecological fabric.
Its sinuous plan weaves toward and away from the guard gate, creating a dynamic experience of its three towers: walking along the bridge, pedestrians can both examine the delicate latticework of the structure up close and experience the gate from afar. To the cyclist and jogger, the curving arcs offer an elegant, effortless continuation of the Brockport Loop.
On either side of the canal, the trail beneath the bridge widens, creating larger gathering decks for crowds to watch boating events. Areas for seating, bike parking, and open park space are nestled into the base of the bridge along the trail on either side where the bridge touches down.
Taking inspiration from both roller coaster steel fabrication and the efficient skeletal system of a fish, the bridge design morphs a standard set of connections and structural elements attached to a box beam spine, producing its dynamic form. The primary span is achieved through a 3-foot deep trapezoidal box girder held up by tetrahedral pipe supports. The box girder provides a spine for a system of interlocking plates that form a waffle deck, allowing sufficient support for a prefabricated wood deck while using thinner steel members.
