--- --- # Why Preserving Bridges Means Preserving History  Amy Trahey Amy TraheyImage Credit: Amy Trahey Bridges have shaped Amy Trahey’s understanding of connection for as long as she can remember. As President of [Great Lakes Engineering Group](https://glengineering.com/), she has spent her career evaluating and preserving critical infrastructure. Yet her perspective on bridges transcends engineering specifications or construction timelines. Instead, for Trahey, bridges represent something fundamentally human. A childhood marked by challenges left a lasting impression on how she viewed connection, resilience, and the pathways that bring people together. Over time, bridges became a powerful symbol of those ideas. The Mackinac Bridge, a structure she crossed countless times growing up in Michigan, eventually became a source of professional inspiration and a defining thread throughout her career. Today, Trahey believes society often overlooks the deeper significance of the structures that quietly support everyday life. “It’s only when you have lost something that you realize how much you really appreciate it and took it for granted,” Trahey says. Modern cities are often filled with iconic bridges that attract a plethora of visitors each year. Travelers photograph them, tour buses cross them, and local residents pass over them without a second thought. Their visual appeal tends to earn them landmark status, but Trahey believes their cultural value encompasses something more than aesthetics. The challenge, she argues, is that many people see only the finished structure. “We think of them as tourist attractions, and that’s wonderful,” she says. “But we need to remember why they matter.” Too often, according to Trahey, people see a bridge only as a landmark or a route from one destination to another. [The Mackinac Bridge](https://www.mackinacbridge.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Final-Economic-Impact-Report-MBA.pdf) itself attracts millions of visitors and has become one of Michigan’s most recognizable icons. Yet she argues that its greatest significance lies in what it enables. Since opening in 1957, she notes that the structure has connected communities, bolstered tourism, supported commerce, and united two regions of the state that were once separated by ferry travel. She also points to London’s famed Tower Bridge, noting that visitors gather daily to capture photographs of its distinctive towers and historic architecture. At the same time, Trahey encourages people to imagine the city without it. “Everyone goes to take a picture of the London Tower Bridge,” she says. “Their taxis go over it, buses go over it, and people walk across it every day. But what if it’s gone and it takes several years to rebuild?” Suddenly, a landmark becomes something much more consequential. Commuters could face longer routes, emergency vehicles may encounter delays, businesses can experience disruption, and communities can become less connected. A bridge’s true value, Trahey adds, often becomes visible only in its absence. Infrastructure discussions often focus on budgets and technical performance. Those considerations are essential, but Trahey believes they tell only part of the story. Bridges, she notes, also carry historical memory. According to her, they reflect the ambitions of the communities that built them and become woven into the identity of the places they serve. “History has to be preserved, respected, honored, maintained, invested in, and cared for by everybody,” she says. That philosophy has informed Trahey’s professional approach throughout her career. Preservation, in her view, is an act of stewardship. Trahey points out that many historic bridges were designed during eras when civic structures were intended to inspire and captivate as well as function. She notes how they integrated architectural details and visual character into the engineering itself. Today, modern replacements often prioritize efficiency and durability, which are necessary goals, but Trahey believes communities should also recognize the cultural significance embedded within older structures. “You never design the new things to be as aesthetically pleasing as the old ones,” she says. “You design things to be safer and stronger, which is important. But some of these bridges represent history in a way that can't simply be recreated.” She also introduces another dimension that amplifies the integrity of infrastructure, one that tends to be overlooked: trust. Crossing a bridge, Trahey acknowledges, requires confidence. Most people never consciously think about it, yet in her view, every crossing depends upon faith in the engineers, inspectors, contractors, and maintenance professionals responsible for ensuring the structure’s safety. Trahey highlights her company’s core value of being ‘humbly confident’ as an important lesson for engineering professionals and the public. She says, “We’re experts in our field, but being humbly confident means admitting when you don’t know something. It means respecting risk.” She sees bridges as physical representations of that balance. They can demand technical expertise while also requiring accountability and humility from the people responsible for their care. For some individuals, crossing a bridge isn’t routine at all. Trahey notes that certain people experience genuine anxiety about bridges, including members of her own family. In those moments, she frames the role of the bridge as a catalyst for boosting trust and personal confidence. “To me, when I cross a bridge, it reminds me of the confidence I have in myself to cross it,” she says. Perhaps that is why Trahey’s view of bridges feels particularly relevant at a time when infrastructure conversations often focus exclusively on logistics and technicalities. Those discussions indeed matter, but they can overlook the wider purpose of the structures themselves. Bridges, she insists, connect neighborhoods, cities, and economies. They can preserve history, enable opportunity, create confidence in movement and access, and most importantly, connect people. Society tends to notice bridges when they are photographed or closed for repairs. Trahey believes their significance deserves attention every day they remain standing. After all, for Trahey, the strongest bridges are ultimately those remembered for the connections they make possible, not just the materials that hold them together. 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