This has puzzled me for a long time. Does anyone know why the sides of bridges are almost always green? Does it have to do with protection from rust? Is it for increased visibility? And is it actually paint at all, or is it some other treatment that’s applied to the metal during manufacturing?
Maybe just the opposite.
Maybe so it will blend in with the environment if a bridge can do that
By the way welcome
Not a bad line of thought, I hadn’t even thought of that.
And thanks, it’s great to be here. I’m sure I’ll have more pointless questions to share in the future.
Not a bad line of thought, I hadn’t even thought of that.
And thanks, it’s great to be here. I’m sure I’ll have more pointless questions to share in the future.
Ahhh, the board of many mysteries. I haven’t seen too many double posts with an hour lag and I can’t, off the top of my head, recall a bridge around here that’s painted green.
Nearly all the steel-framed highway overpasses I’ve seen are painted green. Most of the bridges I’ve sene over water are painted gray. I would expect that the highway department finds green to be the most pleasing color alongside the green of the protected interstate right of way. I know that here in Birmingham, the park service had an inexhaustible supply of ‘Park Service Green’ paint which they used on anything and everything within their reach.
Here’s a link that says green paint (DOT green) is used because it’s widely available. Why is it so widely available? Probably because it’s used on so many bridges. I certainly hope that clears things up.
I’ve seen Red and Gray a lot. The Golden Gate is Red. The Bay Bridge is gray. Of the top of my head, I would have guessed “gray” for the most common bridge color, actually.
I suppose that these structures are painted green the way that military vehicles are painted green. So that they’ll
blend in with the surrounding environment. Ask Stephen King…ouch!
Um, I have never seen a green bridge. Where do you live? Here in the Bay Area, most of our bridges are gray, except the Golden Gate, which is International Orange, not to be confused with red.
It’s easy to consider San Francisco to be the whole world, and never get out to the actual “rest of the US of A”.
I would hazard a guess that what many of those bridges had in common was that they were built by the WPA? And that green was chosen perhaps because of the old Japanese bridges painted by Monet etc.; i.e. green was considered - by some nameless board of WPA bureaucratic aesthetes - a simple, classy, and acceptable color for the everyday, seen-one-you-seen-em-all bridge.
RTA
I had heard that true artists had a hard time making a living in their own time, but “reduced to painting foreigner’s infrastructures to get by” seems like a stretch 
I don’t know why my previous reply posted twice, especially with an hour in between…I blame the computer demons for that one.
As far as bridges go, I’m not talking about any grandiose truss or suspension bridges over water or great distances. Most of the bridges over water around here are…well, bridge-colored, I never paid much attention to them. The bridges I’m discussing are just your run-of-the-mill highway and railroad overpasses. I’m in the Chicago suburbs, and here and throughout the state, the sides of bridges are painted green.
Blending in with the natural landscape sounds like a good explanation to me…anyone have other theories?
In Tucson and most of the rest of Arizona, overpasses are concrete, and thus not painted at all.
Here in VA, I haven’t noticed what color they are, but green would be the logical choice, given the area’s heavy tree coverage.
“International Orange” may be what the paint manufacturer calls it, but to anybody looking at it, it IS to be confused with red.
BTW, I’ve lived places other than the Bay Area, and I would still say the most common bridge color is gray. I would also say that they come in a variety of colors.
I don’t spend much time down in the Cities, but still…
It seems that while many of the bridges are painted light blue, as in “Sky Blue Waters”, most of them are rusted-out stainless steel…
Of course, maybe I just can’t get the Sculpture Garden out of my head…
BrothaTJ,
Take a ride down through Joliet, where it seems they have just painted the bridges (which were bright green) a funny shade of rusty copper. I have no idea why the change, but I don’t like either color.
From RTA
Yes, can’t you just imagine the conversation:
Construction Foreman: “Well, fellas, what color shall we paint 'er?”
Worker 1: “Y’know, boss, I’ve always wanted to build a bridge to inspire the likes of Monet.”
Worker 2: “Yes, the green of those fabulous Monet landscapes is the only real choice…”
All three: “Ahhhhhhhhh…”
Of course, here in Texas, the bridges are mostly concrete. They’re covered with some sort of finish, but I wouldn’t call it green.