The Cedar Ave Bridge is a pair of twin spans consisting of large steel arch spans, flanked by long concrete girder causeways. The bridge spans the Minnesota River valley, including large wetland areas on each side of the main channel. These are certainly the most impressive bridge structures in the Twin Cities area. The only other bridge in Minnesota that is in this league is the US-2 Bong Bridge in Duluth.
Transit buses use the bridge shoulders to avoid traffic, so the bridge is really 4 lanes each way. The bridge often backs up northbound in the morning due to a number of slow exits north of the bridge. It is not unusual for morning traffic to back up all the way into Apple Valley. In addition, traffic from I-35E backs up on the loop to Cedar Avenue, and often back into the collector/distributor lanes. Now that the MN-100 Ease The Squeeze project is complete, this is probably the single worst traffic issue in the twin cities.
