Upate, 4pm: The text has been updated to clarify the bridge’s color capabilities and include more info on current setup from the design firm.
The curvy crossings over Hwy. 59 east of Spur 527 have been caught on camera glowing at passing drivers this week as workers test out the new colored lighting systems. Sarah Gandy of Gandy² Lighting Design tells Swamplot that the plan is to have all 6 bridges lit nightly by the first week of February as the pre-Super Bowl hullaballoo ramps up, but that final tweaks and adjustments are still being made (as seen here).
Gandy tells Swamplot that the bridge’s color patterns are still being programmed, and that they’ll soon be capable of a full range of groovy multi-tone modes like those shown in renderings previously released by the Montrose Management District (shown below):
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The first of those were being tested out on Wednesday night:
A reader also sent in a few snaps of the Hazard St. bridge under this week’s full moon, as seen during Tuesday’s round of testing:
- Previously on Swamplot:Â Never Mind the Lawsuit; Montrose Management District Still Marking Its Territory;Â Comment of the Day: A Low-Cost Lighting Option for the 59 Bridges;Â What It Would Cost To Get Those 59 Bridge Lights Working Again;Â Swamplot Street Sleuths: Giving 59 a Light Twist
Photos: Gandy2 Lighting Design (top 6), Rex Solomon (bottom 2)
No wonder the businesses in Montrose overwhelmingly want the MMD District dissolved.
Twenty three “business” property owners stuck over 1,000 commercial property owners with a tax to light a bridge. I wonder what the monthly electrical / maintenance bill will be for MMD.
How’s does a lighted bridge over a freeway sell more goods/services for the businesses paying the taxes?
There must be a “I don’t care what it costs decision makers” trying to duplicate year around Xmas like lighting directing the tax spending on the MMD Board.
At least when the downtown buildings are lit up, the building owners making the decision are paying the freight.
As a resident of the city, this adds some nice to our city
Got to be kiddin…Could you be anymore of a Debbie Downer! These bridges are absolutely beautiful now all lit up. And YES it does help to serve as a eye catching gateway of sorts for Montrose to the freeway drivers below. It’s Houstonians like you who have made this town look like some stuffy, rigid, conservative town. Live a little, it’s just some pretty lights! God knows this town could use way more aesthetically pleasing “eye candy”. Sheesh!
Umm, they look cool until you can’t ignore those ugly bright light “pucks”. Ruins the whole effect. Is like an ugly motion-detector light fixture above you garage on the front of your house with also the bulbs exposed … cheezy and half-ass.
Eddie:
The COH is dead broke under the last 15 years of “Democratic” Houston Mayors guidance. The defined benefit Pension Plans should not of been started by Brown or shut down by White/ Parker. Turner’s plan is a joke. Finally a Mayor says the plans are unsustainable but lacks the courage to do what needs to be done.
Shut down the defined benefit plans.
You might wonder what a Pension Rant has to do bridge lighting?
Everything.
Tax Dollars are being wasted.
I LOVE the bridge lighting very glad not one cent is my tax money at work. IF these Bridges were to be lit, COH it TXDOT should be paying.
COH is dead broke. TDOT couldn’t justify spending.
Therefore, the COH has relied upon a work-around taxing authority tax payers don’t want for a little “ginger bread” instead of COH fixing our real problem which is Pensions to do the COH real job of security, infrastructure, and equity in CIP projects throughout the COH.
Houston’s system of CIP Tax Payer Equity is wrong.
Why aren’t our bridges all over COH -Harris County lit up?
Gateway to and from Downtown? Why didn’t the Downtown District fund the project if so invaluable?
Take a look at the small businesses on lower Rich,nod– their illegally collected tax dollars were wasted on a project doing them Zero good…….the sidewalks suck on lower Richmond– which would you rather have, a lit up Bridge or decent sidewalks in front of your property?
I’m guessing your NOT a MMD commercial property owner paying their illegal taxes for the Bridge lighting fiasco?
I’m guessing you like Ginger Bread over needed infrastucture projects.
This is the Same as going on an rxpensive vacation coming back to your home being foreclosed by lender.
Never saw any of the original lighting so will be fun to take the toddler over these bridges at night and watch the cars go by.
But yeah, I believe Houstonians should be on the hook for non-advertising aesthetic expenditures, not small business owners already struggling to get by in a city dominated by massive income inequality.
Thumbs up although they’re a bit gawdy, but so is Houston I suppose.
And as far as LED lighting goes, the new LED streetlight across the street from my house has gone literally on the blink several times and it was like some Stephen King scene strobe light. Would be interesting to see if these start to do that…I predict spontaneous bridge-based disco dancing if so.
now if we can just keep the graffiti off of them at least until the Super Bowl we will be in business.
Got to be kiddin,
Swamplot is an such an odd forum to voice your political opinions……
Sam,
Your right about me / a little odd. All the Management Districts are Houston local Politics at at their worst loaded with Mayor’s insiders spending tax dollars improperly on No Bid Procurement’s with their friends.
Swamplot is a great place to vent.
I haven’t been on the new “lighted Bridges” but heard from one Montrose business friend told me MMD took down the existing street lights, in lieu of the Art Deco Bridge lighting.
Maybe colorful for those driving 60 mph on US 59 but dark for those walking / driving across the once street lighted, busy bridges I’m being told the street is improperly lit.
If so, standard operating procedure for Management District Morons.
Yeah, while this looks pretty cool, I’m not sure if it’s worth the $6m (?) taxed to people in Montrose.
Totally agree with Got to be kiddin. Can we send the bill to you Got to be Kitten? Ridiculous waste of taxpayer money. They may be cool, but like in real life, if you can’t afford it, you need to do without.
I just heard MMD put up new “street lights” to actually light the street.
Bravo.
Now all that needs to be done is get ALL the illegally collect tax money back, commercial property owners paid to MMD thru the court system.
It would be better if the MMD board members, joint or separately were tagged with the $6 mil + judgement. That way even Mayor Parker thru Hubbard would have to pay.
Got to be Kiddin, If you had done your research or listened to the local news you would find out that the City of Houston did not pay for the lighted bridges, the State of Texas did. And it did not come out of “pot hole” or “sidewalk”I happen to know this for a FACT and the lights cost $1.7mil not $6mil, and I ASSURE you theGman they were NOT half-ass construction.
The above was supposed to say… “the money did not come from a pot hole or sidewalk fund”