Which river have you crossed most often in your life?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzS-Jis7kfA

would be the east river (nyc) for me, but it is #actually a [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_River]tidal estuary[url], not a river, and therefore doesn't count

so: probably potomac, possibly allegheny

ew

As a Portlander all my life, the Willamette River by a long shot.

the river Clyde. Lived my whole life along it until i was 27. didn't actually cross it that often for most of those years, was generally on the north side of the river almost all of the time, but went across it and back going to work for 3 years.

The Saint Lawrence, and it's not even close.

that's a fleuve, sorry

(j/k)

I will answer this as I did on Twitter:

https://historicbridges.org/truss/lasalle/little_dscf3501.jpg

(Chicago River. I worked in the brick building on the left for 13 years. Marina Towers, of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot fame, in the background.)

I was going to joke about that but thought better of it for fear of being vmic, so thank you. :)

xp

the Willamette, easy

Grew up in Oxford, south of the Thames, on the other side from the centre of town. Lived in London for 12 years, south of the Thames, on the other side from the centre of town.

Phlegethon

the isar, twice a day every school day for 4 years

https://media.hnd.bayern.de/karten/isar.png

Presumably the Styx, Lethe, Cocytus and Acheron as well?

xp

I'm guessing:

1. Rideau Canal
2. Rideau River
3. Ottawa River
4. Gatineau River
5. Charles River

Hm possibly the Des Plaines, which I grew up near. Though commuting in Chicago to various other places for a decade means it could be the Chicago. I also used to cross the Savannah somewhat often and currently live pretty close to the St Lawrence, though, especially this year, I don't cross it very often.

Rivers are good

Gatineau might actually be highest if I factor in swimming or kayaking across.

Mississippi probably

The Mississippi, easily thousands of times.

Rivers are good

otm

The Trinity, pretty much daily for most of my adult life.

The (White) Cart.

The Tombigbee River (and the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway), several times a week.

The River Severn, easily.

as a commuter to london in my youth, i crossed under the thames via the waterloo & city line twice daily for several years.

if we decided that the hudson and east rivers don't count the answer is probably the bronx river for me. might be even if they do count!

hudson counts

Brazos

Oconee

Probably the Chena river in Fairbanks; six years of driving over it, biking over it, skiing on it and floating down it.

Second would prob be the Seine bc of living in Paris and Rouen.

almost certainly the river Hull which runs down the middle of the city and divides it in two

Must be the Mersey, rarely by the ferry

https://i2-prod.nottinghampost.com/incoming/article3791078.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/0_JS150336570.jpg

The Keweenaw Waterway—it isn't really a river, but close enough.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4b/Portage_Lake_on_the_Keweenaw_Waterway%2C_Michigan.jpg/2880px-Portage_Lake_on_the_Keweenaw_Waterway%2C_Michigan.jpg

The DuPage in Illinois. Eventually that'll likely be overtaken by the Verde in Arizona.

emil.y what bridge is that?

Look, if the Hudson, which is also an estuary, counts, then the East River has to count!

the east river, commuting from brooklyn to manhattan. i THINK. i've also ventured across the hudson and the delaware many times, as someone who grew up in new jersey, attended college and grad school in pennsylvania, and have worked and lived in new york city.

these days i live in fort lee and can see the hudson from my window.

Considering my residential history I've crossed the Hudson shockingly few times. My actual answer might be the St. Lucie River (technically an estuary that was once a river) or the Miami River, both in Florida.

Corrib for last 20 years
Worked on the Liffey at one point or actually a couple of different ones. I know how much vibration you get if you stand in teh middle of teh hapenny bridge from one thing and how badly the wind blows through teh O'Connell brdge's decorative pillars from another.

The Mississippi between Minneapolis and St Paul

That would have been the San Diego Creek, which despite the name is in Orange County. I crossed over it and back every weekday between home in Costa Mesa and work at UC Irvine for 18 years, 1997 to 2015, vacations etc aside. Ever since I've moved to SF I've just walked to work and while I might be crossing over some long covered wetlands I'm not positive about that.

The Credit River probably, followed by the Humber and the Moira.

if the east river doesn't count as a river, it's the truckee river in reno

In order of long-term residences: the Cuyahoga, Potomac, Mersey, and Wisła.

Runners-up for me would be Dâmbovița and the Ill.

emil.y what bridge is that?

― rob

Trent Bridge, Nottingham.

by now it has to be the don river

my runners up are probably the Kelvin in Glasgow and the Fraser (which separates Vancouver and its southern suburbs)

Probably the Thames, possibly the Kennet

Also Nick, so you grew up at least for a few years in Germany??

Yeah I was in Munich from the age of 12 to until I was 16 (air force dad)

It's interesting to think about whether, in the US at least, there are a lot of places where you wouldn't cross a river every day or even most days or even some days? Idk, I think port cities are strongly represented here because obviously, but surely most of the US has no water access at all?

i'd be interested to know what plateaus ilxors have spent the most time on

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, January 27, 2021 3:17 PM (twenty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

the colorado plateau, if the great basin doesn't count as one.

guessing Bro. Brigham and co. were excited there was a river and so they called it the Jordan River and begat South Jordan (et al) where a dude I crushed on in high school moved w/his family

― sarahell, Wednesday, January 27, 2021 2:14 AM (thirteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

lots of begetting, lots of biblical renaming, although they kept a surprising amount of the paiute names and did a surprising amount of renaming that wasn't biblical, just dull as dishwater (think "deer creek"). don't mean to presume too much, but you seem to have crushed on more than one mormon boy once upon a time, and from experience i can say that mormon boys/men and 95% of ex-mormon boys/men are total trash.

It's interesting to think about whether, in the US at least, there are a lot of places where you wouldn't cross a river every day or even most days or even some days? Idk, I think port cities are strongly represented here because obviously, but surely most of the US has no water access at all?

― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Wednesday, January 27, 2021 3:46 PM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i think nearly everywhere has a stream, creek, or ditch that people often cross. one city i can think of that might not is las vegas, though it does have a "river" in the form of a concrete canal, similar to los angeles.

surely most of the US has no water access at all?

usa has 250,000 rivers stretching about 3.5 million miles -- there aren't too many places you can go very far without crossing a lil one

https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/us-river-maps-artful-data-5.jpg

Keep thinking about
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAX0OT2UNIU

idg las vegas -- why is it there instead of closer to the colorado?

no idea, ask the mormons

some springs or drainage from mount charleston i think

i think nearly everywhere has a stream, creek, or ditch that people often cross.

When I lived in Durham NC I crossed creeks each day. But no rivers. Same thing in the Bay Area.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40jUD84S7Nk

the Chattahoochee, if we're only counting major rivers. (h/t Alan Jackson)

This, if counting smaller tributaries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_River_(Georgia)

As a Portlander all my life, the Willamette River by a long shot.

St Clair River, at the southernmost point of Lake Huron, hopping the border between Ontario and Michigan

I like this question!

Potomac by a long shot (former DC resident of 20ish years), followed by Monongahela (former Pittsburgh resident/frequent visitor for some years).

I need to look at a map and see what river is now closest to me in coastal SoCal. Nowhere close, is my guess.

https://www.google.com/maps/@28.5423186,-80.9443514,3a,39.3y,106.02h,89.56t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sHcP-xWZEzolaSQRwPnxMsQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

(St. John's River in Florida)

Has to be the Etobicoke River when I lived in Toronto (although I probably wasn't even aware of it most of the time). Not a very glamorous answer.

Here I am a few months ago crossing the Thames River where I live now. I have a fear of heights, so it took me almost a year to walk across this bridge; about a dozen times I tried to and turned back. I finally managed only when a visiting friend walked me over.

https://phildellio.tripod.com/bridge.jpg

aww good work lol!

Idk, I think port cities are strongly represented here because obviously, but surely most of the US has no water access at all?

This is kinda convoluted in that you can have water access and no river ... and yeah, historically port cities have rivers, because that was how goods were transported, but with railroads and later industrialization (e.g. highways, airports), this isn't necessarily the case. Oakland is one the busiest West Coast ports and has no river, and I strongly doubt Long Beach (which I think is an even busier port than Oakland) has a river either.

long beach is where the la river meets the ocean! part of this is that california took all the river water so they're either dry or underground/diverted/extremely modified. santa barbara for instance has a lot of drainage but i believe most of it is diverted or tunneled under the city. or seasonal / dry.

the keweenaw waterway aka portage canal was already mentioned here - I've lived on both sides of it and have crossed it at least a dozen times in a single day

There's only one bridge between the rest of michigan and 'copper island' which is 550 square miles with maybe 10,000 people (and both hospitals, so good luck if the bridge gets stuck):

https://www.mtu.edu/tour/community/images/houghton-hancock-800banner.jpg

long beach is where the la river meets the ocean! part of this is that california took all the river water so they're either dry or underground/diverted/extremely modified. santa barbara for instance has a lot of drainage but i believe most of it is diverted or tunneled under the city. or seasonal / dry.

― satanist of size (map), Wednesday, January 27, 2021 7:03 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

and obviously much of california is borderline desert

i'd be interested to know what plateaus ilxors have spent the most time on

Hardly any. Sea level 4 lyf.

San Gabriel (twice a day in a 13+ year commute), then Arroyo Seco, and 3rd Los Angeles. None of these are "rivers" the way most of the others in this thread are.

i'd be interested to know what plateaus ilxors have spent the most time on

meat puppets ii

yeah the "Seco" kinda gives it away?

Like the East River problem upthread, the Bay Area is a bit of a technicality because the bodies of water that the famous 8 local bridges cross are technically not rivers despite being massive outflows (*most of the time, but often brackish) of glaciermelt from the Sierra Nevada & Coastal Range mountains into the Pacific Ocean.

Where the Sacramento River ends, the bay begins:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/04/Sacramento_River_basin_map.png/800px-Sacramento_River_basin_map.png

A rephrase of "Which body of water have you crossed most often?" or "Which bridge..." would help me because I have no idea the answer to the OP lol.

Up to the top of the Shasta Gulch
To the bottom of the Tahoe Lake
Manmade deltas and concrete rivers
The South takes what the North delivers

yeah the "Seco" kinda gives it away?

― sarahell

But when it rages, it rages.

I imagine it would be the river Garnock which ran past the end of the garden of the house where I grew up, I spent 26 years in London but mostly N, N/W or Central, so perhaps some obscure underground river in N Central London?

"i'd be interested to know what plateaus ilxors have spent the most time on"

The escarpment I can see out my back window is the edge of the Colorado plateau

In the Hawaiian language, wai means fresh water and luku means destruction, so Wailuku means essentially River of Destruction. The river can rise into the trees and drop back down very fast. The high flood marks can be seen dated in concrete, on the stairs going down to the river behind the Hilo Public Library.

(runner up: willamette)

Where the Sacramento River ends, the bay begins:

Northernist!

If creeks don't count, then the Lehigh River, followed by the East River, Schuykill, Hudson, Delaware and Big Muddy.

River: Susquehanna. Creek: Conodoguinet.

in texas they’ll call anything bigger than a trickle a river, it’s okay

Would have been the East River, unless that doesn’t count, in which case it’s the Bronx River. And I only see more Bronx River crossings in my future, with very few more over the East River.

oh no did you sell out

(j/k)

I didn’t sell out. I bought in.

Rubicon

Tbh I feel for Bay Area folks... a liftetime spent crossing bodies of water, often over iconic bridges, but all over either a bay or various creeks - no rivers. The answer to the suggestion that residents of major port cities will be accustomed to river crossings: not when they are fed by something other than what are technically ‘rivers’ (see Hudson and East River discussions for example).

if the East River isn't really a river then does that mean Long Island isn't an island?

That link tried to download something to my hard drive.

It's a pdf on the topic by the oceanographer quoted in this Newsday article

TL;DR it's an island! but not legally recognized as such for reasons that may be more political than scientific

today I realised that the Solent is also not a river, despite having spent four years of my life in Southampton

Has to be the Thames for me, even though I've never lived in London, but I've also never lived anywhere in the US with a river that I had to go over with any regularity that I recall. But when I am in London (which used to be at least once a year) I'd usually wind up crossing it twice a day.

Easily the Schuylkill, with the Sacramento a very very close second- much of my life has been spent in either Philadelphia or California, so that explains it.