Swing Bridge

From essay written September 10, 1991

The Swing Bridge is one of Belize City’s most venerable and beloved features. It is a narrow, two-way bridge with high sides; it spans the Haulover Creek, a branch of the Belize River that bisects the city. The bridge carries traffic between the commercial center on the North side, centered around the Paslow Building, where the Post Office is located, and the larger commercial center on the South side.

Twice a day, at 5:30 am and 5:30 pm, or as close to those hours as is convenient to the bridge tender, the bridge is swung to allow river traffic to pass. Men fasten a chain across the street at each end of the bridge, while bicyclists push over, under, and past the barricade to prevent being stranded while the bridge is open and pedestrians race along the enclosed sidewalks at each side of the span. The bridge crew fixes a pipe with long bar handles into a slot in the center of the bridge and men slowly walk around in a small circle, pushing the bars, which crank open the bridge.

Occasionally the bridge sticks, stopping traffic. It no longer is the disaster it used to be, because several years ago Canada assisted Belize in building a second bridge across the Haulover, just at the entrance to the city.

 

Through the years, the Swing Bridge has flaunted an eccentric series of paint schemes. I do not remember the color it was painted when we first arrive, so assume it was gray. Possibly sometimes it was refurbished in dull green.

Just before Independence in 1981, I was entranced one morning to see a polka-dotted bridge. Overnight the bridge had been repainted the same chrome yellow as a Caterpillar tractor. The vanes (structural stiffeners) on the insides of the high walls separating vehicular traffic from pedestrian had been painted white. This was a good idea, I thought, in terms of safety. But most precious of all, each and every rivet in the entire steel bridge had been picked out in pristine white. I had the feeling that a dainty robot was waiting around the corner, ready to whisk the entire structure around her as a summer dress.

When the new government came in they repainted the bridge a handsome, conservative forest green, with white vanes. The problem was that the dark color made the narrow bridge seem doubly narrow to the drivers creeping across it.

Of late, the bridge has been solid bright yellow, cheerful and unobjectionable.

Recently on my way to work, I paused in front of the Post Office, turned to check oncoming traffic, and was so startled by the bridge that my foot slipped off the brake and I rear-ended the car in front of me. The irate driver emerged, as I did with embarrassed apologies. There was no damage; I was barely moving when I hit him.

As for the cause of the contretemps, there stood our traditional bridge looking like an Easter Egg in the brightest of aqua trimmed with the brightest of yellow.