Ten questions

Ten Questions, Answered the Way the Desk Answers Them

These are the questions that actually arrive, in the order they arrive. The first two are about money and the last one is about data, which tells you something about what readers care about.

The ten

Is any of this a service? Can I book something through you?

No. The Public Deck is a publication and sells nothing at all. There is no tour, no guide, no ticket, no accommodation and no transport on offer here, and no page on this site takes a payment.

One thing on the site does something rather than saying something: a flight search on the front page, on the search page and on the arriving page. That search belongs to an outside booking service, not to us. We take no reservation, hold no money and never see a card number.

Then how is this publication paid for?

By the company that publishes it, Public Deck Register LLC, plus one arrangement: if you use the flight search and afterwards book with that service, the service may pay us a commission. What you pay is the same either way.

There is nothing else. No advertising, no sponsored writing, no affiliate links inside the articles, no paid placement, and no relationship with any dock operator, vessel owner, mill or transport company. If that ever changes it will be written on the about page before it happens.

Do I need permission or a ticket to watch any of this?

No, and that is most of why the subject is worth writing about. Every place described here is somewhere anybody can walk to, and none of them charges anything or requires asking.

The rule this publication holds to is stricter than the law: no gate is passed, no fence is climbed and no operating dock is entered. A working dock is a workplace with equipment moving on it, and a visitor standing on one is a hazard to himself and an interruption to somebody's shift.

When do the bridges open? Is there a schedule?

There is no schedule and nobody publishes one, because a span opens when a hull asks it to and a hull arrives when it arrives. Anything that promises you an opening at a particular hour is guessing.

What you can do is stand somewhere where an opening would be visible and let it happen or not. Where to stand is written on that assumption, and a first visit puts the places in an order that works whether or not anything moves.

How long does an opening take, and why does it feel longer?

Between about six and fifteen minutes from bells to gates lifting, and only around ninety seconds of that is the deck moving.

The rest is procedure: clearing the road, confirming the deck is empty, retracting the lock bars, then the hull passing, then all of it in reverse. Understanding that is the single most useful thing before a first visit, because it stops you concluding that nothing is happening. How a lift span works walks the whole sequence.

Can I stand on the bridge while it opens?

No. You have to be off the movable deck before it moves, which means the moment you came for is the moment you must already have left.

Stand on the fixed approach instead. You can see the counterweight, the gates and the lock bars perfectly well from there, and you are not the reason an opening is held.

Is it suitable for children?

The fixed approach of a span sidewalk and a high viaduct sidewalk are both fine. The valley floor street ends mostly are not, because there is truck traffic and frequently no sidewalk at all.

Every place written up here says what is uncomfortable about it in the first two lines, and that is there precisely so a parent can decide without having to guess.

Why do you never name the bridges, docks or buildings?

Because most of those names belong to companies, and a publication that has no relationship with a company should not be putting its name in its own writing as though it did.

So places are given by type and by street: the lift span at such a street, the stone berth on such a bank. That is enough for anybody to find them, and it means nothing on this site can be read as a claim of association with anybody.

Are the photographs of the specific places you describe?

No, and this is stated rather than left to assumption. The plates show the type of structure being discussed. They are not documentation of a named object, and no caption claims otherwise.

Editorial standards explains why a publication that refuses to name structures also refuses to pretend its pictures are records of named ones.

What do you keep about me, and who else gets it?

One entry in your own browser, remembering that you have read the storage notice. No analytics, no advertising code, no pixels, no profile and nothing shared with anybody.

If you send the letter form, four fields reach the desk mailbox and stay there. If you press the button on the flight search, one query string goes to the outside booking service. The privacy policy and the storage policy list both in full, and clerk@travelmonte.com answers anything either of them does not.

If your question is not here

Write to watch@travelmonte.com and it will be answered during desk hours. Anything about what is stored, or a request to delete it, goes to clerk@travelmonte.com instead. The telephone is +1 (216) 875-3062, and Letters are read Tuesday to Saturday between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm Eastern time. Sunday and Monday nobody is at the desk, and anything that arrives then waits for Tuesday.