Painted Bridges - Tano Road/Circle Drive Overcrossing

Since many bridges are painted, a better description for this series might be 'beautifully' painted bridges.

All of the retaining walls and bridges on US 84/285 (north of Santa Fe, New Mexico) between the NM-599 turnoff north to Pojoaque (a distance of 13 miles) are painted with traditional images executed by native artists.

The first bridge is an overcrossing just north of the Route 599 turnoff from I-84. On the north barrier it says 'Tierra Sagrada' (the sacred land) and the south side it says 'Paz' (peace). This bridge is an 150 ft long single span precast I girder bridge with magenta girders and pink wingwalls decorated with ears of corn. The pink and aquamarine railings are decorated with triangles and diamonds. Nearby are elaborate brick and concrete retaining walls with inset decorative panels.

In the next couple of days we'll look at a few more New Mexican bridges decorated by the native people of the region. More information on this project can be found on several websites including high plains traveler and the cultured traveler.

Painted Bridges - Tano Road/Circle Drive Overcrossing by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.