New Orleans, Louisiana.

The Crescent City Connection (CCC), formerly known as the Greater New Orleans (GNO) Bridge, is a pair of cantilever bridges that carry U.S. Highway 90 Business Loop over the Mississippi River in New Orleans, Louisiana. The two bridges are the fifth-longest cantilever design spans in the world. Each span carries four general-use automobile lanes. The westbound span has two reversible HOV lanes, allowing directional changes during heavy traffic.

The Crescent City Connection, originally called the Greater New Orleans Bridge (GNO Bridge), wasn’t built all at once. Construction began on the first section in November 1954 and opened for traffic in April 1958. At its completion, the span became the world’s longest cantilever bridge. It wasn’t until March 1981 that construction started on the westbound section, known as GNO Bridge No. 2. Drivers finally used it in September 1988, completing the entire Crescent City Connection.

According to the Louisana Department of Transportation and Development, the bridges have an annual traffic volume greater than 63 million vehicles. Formerly a toll bridge, the tolls were abolished in 2013. This is the southernmost crossing of the Mississippi River.

About the photo: We walked from our hotel via Poydras Street toward the Riverwalk Outlets mall built along the west bank of the Mississippi. It was nearing sunset when we started our stroll down the river walkway. People were boarding a riverboat for a sunset dinner cruise. As the blue hour waned, a tugboat and barge headed upriver. I captured the image on my Samsung S23U and brought it into Luminar Neo for minimal enhancements. I tweaked the contrast and brightness to add impact to the reflections and used a linear mask to slightly darken the exposure in the sky to emphasize the city lights. You can view the image on a dark background for better pixel-peeping on my Flickr site. Just click on the image to view it in 2K HD.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s also acceptable. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner