This in turn inspired more infrastructure, including a tram bridge near Mierlo (the foundations of which are still visible). The Eindhoven Channel was widened and modernized between 1929 and 1934. After World War II the internal shipping of the country (including to Eindhoven) temporarily rebounded. But the rise of motorized road transport soon and permanently killed it off again and the channel was closed to commercial shipping in 1974. There were plans for a while to drain the canal and lay a motorway on its bed, but those plans were canceled in the failing economy of the times. The canal is currently a quiet nature area for recreational use and is part of the Ecological Mainline. The channel landscape is very interesting from an ecological point of view. The banks are lined with reeds and carices, the paths with wild flowers such as Solomon's Seal. The water hosts several remarkable water plants such as potamogetons, water soldier and the rare brittle waternymph (which spread into the channel in 1992). The old harbor area is also a nature area now, featuring several introduced species of plants; very notable among these is the Forez striped fern, which was discovered in the harbor in 1988. The Eindhoven Channel crossed the drainage areas of the Kleine Dommel and the Goorloop. This means that the bicycle patch along the canal is also a natural access path to the Hulsterbroek, Urkhovense Zeggen and Groot Goor nature preserves. The lift bridge over the channel in Eindhoven is an industrial monument (together with a number of nearby buildings, one of which – the former ice cream factory of Tongelre – houses the DAF museum). Some of the original street paving with the original cobblestones has been preserved here as well.