Benjamin Franklin Bridge
Coordinates: 39 ° 57 ′ 10 ″ N , 75 ° 8 ′ 3 ″ W.
| Benjamin Franklin Bridge | ||
|---|---|---|
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| use | Road and rail bridge; two footpaths |
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| Convicted |
Interstate 676 , US Route 30 , PATCO Speedline |
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| Crossing of | Delaware River | |
| place |
between Philadelphia ( Pennsylvania ) and Camden ( New Jersey ), United States |
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| Entertained by | Delaware River Port Authority (DRPA) | |
| Building number | 4500010 | |
| construction | Steel - Suspension Bridge | |
| overall length | 2941.32 m | |
| width | 39.01 m | |
| Longest span | 533.40 m | |
| Construction height | 115.82 m | |
| Load capacity | 17.86 t / m | |
| Clear height | 41.15 m | |
| vehicles per day | 100,000 vehicles / day approx. 230 trains / day |
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| building-costs | $ 45,200,000 | |
| start of building | January 6, 1922 | |
| opening | July 1, 1926 | |
| planner | Ralph Modjeski | |
| toll | US $ 5 (car, westbound) | |
| location | ||
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The Benjamin Franklin Bridge (often called the Ben Franklin Bridge ), originally the Delaware River Bridge , is a road and rail bridge that spans the Delaware River and connects Philadelphia , Pennsylvania with Camden , New Jersey . Together with the Betsy Ross Bridge , the Walt Whitman Bridge and the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge , it is one of the four important bridges between Philadelphia and the southern part of New Jersey.
When it was completed on July 1, 1926, the suspension bridge had the longest span in the world, a record it held until the Ambassador Bridge was completed in 1929 .
It was named after the American statesman Benjamin Franklin .
description
The Benjamin Franklin Bridge today has 7 lanes ; The middle lane can be assigned to one or the other direction according to the volume of traffic by sliding barriers. Currently, Interstate 676 and US Highway 30 run over the bridge. In the westerly direction of travel, a toll of US $ 5 is levied for cars, which can be paid with the E-ZPass . On both sides of the bridge there is a track of the PATCO Speedline on a lower level and a walkway above the level of the carriageway, of which usually only one is open. After the attacks in London on July 7, 2005, the footpaths were closed for a period of time for security reasons. The bridge has a clearance height of 41.1 m (135 ft) above MHW , a height measure that was originally set by the Brooklyn Bridge and has since applied to most bridges in the wider area.
Technical details
The bridge structure, including all access roads, is almost three kilometers long. The bridge itself is 1078 m (3536 ft ) long, measured from anchor block to anchor block . Of this, 533.4 m (1750 ft) are accounted for by the span of the main opening and 272.2 m (893 ft) for each of the two side openings. The bridge is 39 m (128 ft) wide, including the walkways and railroad tracks on the lower deck. The seven-lane carriageway is 23.7 m (78 ft) wide and is framed by the 8.5 m high steel framework of the stiffening girder, which forms a trough open at the top. The anchor blocks have an area of over 2000 m², rise 53 m above the ground and reach a depth of 20 m on one side and 32 m on the other.
The 117 m (385 ft) towering pylons stand in the water in front of the shoreline. Its steel stems have a multi-cell hollow cross-section and are stiffened several times by horizontal and diagonal struts. The two 76.2 cm thick suspension cables run above the truss. They each consist of 18,666 individual wires that have been processed into parallel wire ropes using the air- jet spinning process .
history
In December 1919, Pennsylvania and New Jersey founded the Delaware River Bridge Joint Commission , which Ralph Modjeski commissioned as chief bridge engineer with the planning and construction management of the bridge. Leon S. Moisseiff , who had applied the deflection theory developed by him to the Manhattan Bridge , was also brought in. The actual construction work began on January 6, 1922 and ended on July 1, 1926. At that time, the bridge had five lanes and two tram tracks inside the girder, as well as the two tracks outside the truss, which were not used for a long time.
The Delaware River Port Authority was founded in 1951 and has (also) operated the Benjamin Franklin Bridge since then. To adapt to the increased volume of traffic, they removed the two inner tracks and converted the carriageway to seven lanes.
Additional information
See also
- List of the longest suspension bridges
- List of bridge constructions with the participation of Ralph Modjeski
literature
- Delaware River Joint Bridge Commission (Ed.): The Bridge over the Delaware River (Technical Report) . 1927.
- Jackson, Donald C .: Great American Bridges and Dams . John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY 1984, ISBN 0-471-14385-5 .
- Petroski, Henry: Engineers of Dreams . Vintage Books, New York, NY 1995, ISBN 978-0-679-43939-4 .
Web links
- DRPA :: Delaware River Port Authority . (Accessed December 28, 2008)
- Independence Hall Association, electronically publishing as ushistory.org: The Benjamin Franklin Bridge . (Accessed December 28, 2008)
- phillyroads.com by Eastern Roads: Benjamin Franklin Bridge (I-676 and US 30) . (Accessed December 28, 2008)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b The New York Times (ed.): CAMDEN BRIDGE READY FOR WORK . The New York Times, June 27, 1926, p. XX8.
- ↑ Only the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge over the harbor entrance of New York City and the Throgs Neck Bridge are higher.
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Upstream Delair Bridge |
Crossing the Delaware River |
Downriver RiverLink Ferry |