Get your kicks over Route 66

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles on Tuesday opened a pedestrian bridge over Sunset Boulevard, according to an article in the Beverly Hills Courier and a news release from the hospital.

The $10 million bridge, funded by contributions from two couples, was built between Vermont and Hillhurst avenues. The Courier claims it will be “the only hospital bridge on Route 66.”

The bridge links the hospital’s research and patient-care facilities.

From the news release:

The 92-foot, 40-ton steel frame of the walkway was constructed off site and towed in 3/10 of a mile in October, with traffic control by the same firm that directed the Space Shuttle Endeavor’s historical tour through Los Angeles. […]

The bridge […] will provide safe passage for the hundreds of hospital staff who cross Sunset Boulevard at all hours, 365 days a year.

The Mother Road is littered with underground tunnels for pedestrians. But I’m hard-pressed to think of any overhead pedestrian bridges on Route 66. Can anyone recall any?

UPDATE: A reader pointed out an obvious pedestrian overpass on Route 66 — the one at the Cyrus Avery Centennial Plaza in Tulsa.

And Scott Piotrowski, who knows more about Route 66 in Los Angeles County than just about anyone, points out that the section of Sunset where the hospital is located is not Route 66. So the newspaper got that wrong, and I didn’t catch the error.

4 thoughts on “Get your kicks over Route 66

  1. I know one!! The Route 66 Plaza bridge that connects the Plaza (with the East Meets West statue(s), eight state flags, and informative bronze plaques about Cyrus Avery, Route 66, Tulsa, and the 11th Street/Route 66 Bridge) and the parking lot on the hill where we trust Tulsa’s Route 66 Interpretive Center and Museum will be built some day soon. .

  2. Only one small problem – it’s not Route 66. 66 from 1936-1953 veered away from Sunset Boulevard onto Santa Monica Boulevard east of here. This would have been 101 but never a part of 66.

  3. There’s a pedestrian bridge at Sycamore Grove Park over the Arroyo Seco Parkway. I’m sure that I can come up with a few more if I try hard enough but that’s good enough for now to debunk THIS myth.

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