Anisa Khalifa:

You are Taking a Walk on the Broadside. Welcome! I am Anisa Khalifa. This tour is brought to you by The Broadside, a podcast about our home in North Carolina at the crossroads of the South. It's a weekly program from WUNC, Durham's Public Radio Station.

You're at stop number one of five stops around downtown.

Check all of them out on the map right below this audio player on your phone. This story is about the most infamous overpass in America:

Jurgen Henn

This bridge is a completely standard railroad overpass that you see by the dozen along this stretch. There's nothing special about it.

Jerad Walker

This is Jurgen Henn. He and I are standing right about where you are looking up at the Norfolk Southern Gregston Street overpass. And I think you'll agree with him that this isn't exactly an architectural wonder, but there is one notable thing about it.

This overpass has an incredibly low clearance that endangers tall vehicles that go under it. And because of that, it's earned the notorious nickname: The Can Opener.

Jurgen Henn

The can opener comes from the striking visual of a box truck, having the top kind of peeled off, and so that kind of looks like an open sardine can at the end of the day.

Jerad Walker

Jurgen first became aware of the bridge about 20 years ago when he was working for a company based inside one of the buildings at this intersection. He and his coworkers were constantly hearing accidents outside, but no one had actually seen one happen. So, Jurgen decided to put up a camera. A few weeks later, he captured the first video of a can opening, and he started posting them to a new website called YouTube.

((Smashing sound of a can opening))

Jurgen Henn

Well, uh, a few YouTube videos in, I noticed that, wow, people are really morbidly interested in, in these crashes.

Jerad Walker

Since then, he's filmed nearly 200 accidents and his YouTube channel, well, it blew up. He's had about 99 million views. He even has a website called 11foot8.com. Jurgen says there have been very few injuries at the bridge, so it's easy to laugh at the situation. But he still has a lot of sympathy for the drivers.

Jurgen Henn

There's a lot going on on that stretch. It looks narrow, it dips down a little bit. There's multiple intersections before it. The, the road makes kind of a turn. There's lots of signage.

Jerad Walker

And making matters worse, the signs that warn of the low clearance require you to do a little bit of math.

Jurgen Henn

And you know, I mean, that might take a second or two. And if you're going 50 on this stretch, your math skills might not cut it.

Jerad Walker

In 2019, the North Carolina Railroad Company took notice. It owns and maintains the track. It announced a $500,000 project to raise the overpass in order to improve safety. Juergen watched the whole thing.

Jurgen Henn

The process itself was super simple. They just jacked the whole thing up, shoved some shims in there and put it back down.

Jerad Walker

And when it was all said and done, they had raised it eight inches.

Jurgen Henn

So that takes a 11’ 8” clearance to a 12’ 4” clearance, which is still way low.

Jerad Walker

While Jurgen says there are fewer accidents,

Jurgen Henn

It still catches trucks. Yeah, it just caught one recently. I, I actually have to post that video.

Jerad Walker

And so he continues documenting this small piece of Durham and the folks who collide with it.

Jurgen Henn

And I mean in a way, it documents sort of the human condition a little bit too, right? The hectic lives we live and, and the stupid mistakes we make and traffic.

Jerad Walker

Traffic…

Jurgen Henn

Traffic. I mean, that's like an endless discussion.

Anisa Khalifa

This story was made by Jared Walker, a regular voice on The Broadside, a podcast from WUNC about the culture, history, and interesting quirks of North Carolina. You can listen to our weekly episodes anywhere you listen to podcasts.

This project is made possible thanks to the support of Discover Durham.

You can check out more at wunc.org/walking.