They just built this nice pedestrian bridge that goes along a 6 lane 45mph road by my place. It's got a nice trail on either side, that completely dead ends and you have to try to walk on a 30 degree incline of grass next to the road, or brave getting hit by cars doing 55mph on a road with no shoulder. There are two ways to get around this large bay and this is one of them. The other way is this bridge: http://pics4.city-data.com/cpicc/cfiles38924.jpg
Was the funding for the pedestrian bridge rolled into the funding for the road bridge? That's happening near here, the federal funding for a bridge project means that there will be a pedestrian accommodation, even though there's no direct connection on either side of the bridge.
In any case, unless funding is secured all at once, it's likely to be the case that there are bridges that don't connect anything and sidewalks and trails that end abruptly. But both represent movement towards a complete path.
