This past weekend, Beltway traffic began moving entirely on the gleaming new span of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, the completed first half of a project to replace the old river-crossing with 12 shimmering lanes, arcing from Virginia, through a sliver of District, into Maryland. Almost immediately, reports NBC 4, demolition began on the old Wilson bridge.

That old bridge was a pain. It was cramped and usually jammed. Planners hadn't anticipated the crush of traffic that would flow, or creep, over the roadway, and backups often stretched miles, allowing those driving over the bridge to peer down through cracks in the aging asphalt to the river below. The old bridge was built low, necessitating the use of the drawbridge with unfortunate regularity, which brought the thousands of cars of commuters and travelers along 1-95 to a complete stop. It was the bridge everyone loved to hate, and its removal from the highway system this weekend has prompted more cheers than encomia. Good riddance, is the refrain around the town, to bad rubbish.

But you know what? I'm going to miss it.

Growing up, my mother's family lived in Baltimore, and every visit we paid them from our home in North Carolina involved a long drive on I-95, through the wooded Carolina and Virginia countryside. Pretty enough, I suppose, but for a kid in a pre-Game Boy age, it was dreadfully boring. For me, the Wilson Bridge signaled the arrival of the new and exciting. It meant looking left to see downtown Washington, and looking right to the looming tower of the drawbridge control room. That tower was the gateway to the metropolitan giants of the Northeast, the beginning of proper cities where exciting things went on and the concrete monstrosities of buildings and bridges and tunnels stood as testaments to the activity of American life. For me, that bridge separated the familiar and the unfamiliar, the past and the potential. Now when I see it, flying away beneath me at hundreds of miles per hour, it means I'm home, landing at National Airport, back to the place I know best. So yes, I'm going to miss the old thing. Maybe because I don't end up losing hours everyday to the traffic it causes, but still; it's a Washington landmark, and it's one I came to know long before I'd visited the marble edifices of the Mall. So there you go, old bridge, there's your eulogy.

Readers, feel free to add your own in the comments. Tell us what you loved about it and what you hated.