Hawthorne Bridge, Vertical-lift bridge in Portland, United States

The Hawthorne Bridge carries Hawthorne Boulevard and Madison Street across the Willamette River on five fixed steel truss spans and one 74 m (244 ft) vertical-lift span, 421 m (1,382 ft) in total. Two 50 m (165 ft) towers hold 400,000 kg counterweights and carry a small green-roofed operator house on the lift span. The deck is steel grating, 22 m wide with 10 ft sidewalks, and the steel is painted green with red trim.

The current bridge replaced the second Madison Street Bridge, a wooden structure from 1900, and opened on December 19, 1910, at a cost of $511,000. It was designed by Waddell & Harrington, the firm of John Alexander Low Waddell, who invented the modern vertical-lift bridge. Streetcar tracks were moved to the center lanes in 1931, the deck changed from wood to steel grating in 1945, and a $21 million renovation in 1998–99 replaced the deck and repainted the steel green with red trim. It joined the National Register of Historic Places in November 2012.

The bridge and Hawthorne Boulevard are named after Dr. J.C. Hawthorne, cofounder of Oregon's first mental hospital and an early proponent of the first Morrison Bridge. The name has carried the crossing since the current span opened in 1910. A 2011 attack on a same-sex couple holding hands on the bridge prompted the Hands Across Hawthorne demonstration in their support.

The bridge is accessible for both pedestrians and cyclists on wide, designated pathways on each side. Plan your crossing during off-peak hours to avoid heavy foot and bike traffic.

The lift span is 244 feet (74 m) long, and the 880,000-pound (400,000 kg) counterweights hang from the two 165-foot (50 m) towers. A pair of 150-horsepower motors raises the span, on average 120 times a month for river traffic and about 200 times a month when the river runs low. The bridge carries over 8,000 cyclists and 800 TriMet buses daily.