Foresthill Bridge
Coordinates: 38 ° 55 ′ 21 ″ N , 121 ° 2 ′ 19 ″ W.
| Foresthill Bridge | ||
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| Convicted | Foresthill Road | |
| Crossing of | North Fork American River | |
| place | near Auburn , CA | |
| construction | Gerber girder bridge | |
| overall length | 740 m | |
| width | 23 m | |
| Number of openings | three | |
| Longest span | 263 m | |
| height | 223 m | |
| start of building | 1971 | |
| completion | 1973 | |
| planner | Bureau of Reclamation | |
| location | ||
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The Foresthill Bridge, also known as the Auburn-Foresthill Bridge or Auburn Bridge, is a road bridge over the North Fork American River in Placer County in the Sierra Nevada foothills of eastern California.
At 222.5 m (730 ft), it is the tallest bridge in California and the fourth tallest in the United States.
history
The bridge was part of the Auburn-Folsom South Unit as part of the Bureau of Reclamation's Central Valley Project , which aimed to improve the water supply in California's long valley and the flood protection of Sacramento . The reservoir behind the planned 210 m high Auburn Dam , a dam on the North Fork of the American River , required a replacement for the bridge in the valley floor, which would have been flooded. The preparatory work for the construction of the dam began in 1968.
The bridge was manufactured between 1971 and 1973 by the Japanese company Kawasaki Heavy Industries and built by Willamette Western Contractors.
After the earthquake of 1975 at the Oroville Reservoir , about 80 km away, faults were also discovered in the area of the planned Auburn Dam , whereupon construction work was stopped. After years of discussion and rescheduling, it seems that the construction of the dam has finally been abandoned. The winding road to the old bridge on the river still exists, but the short and convenient connection between Auburn and Foresthill over the Foresthill Bridge is a welcome relief.
description
The Foresthill Bridge, which is 740 m long, is a steel truss - Gerber girder bridge with an overhead carriageway. Your three fields have spans of 194.8 + 262.7 + 194.8 m. It originally had two 6 m wide deck girders separated by a large, open space. Her two reinforced concrete - pillars were with a height of 123 m long, the highest pillars of North America until 1993 by mezcala bridge in Mexico was surpassed.
Between 2011 and 2014, the earthquake safety retrofitting work was carried out, which was simply forgotten at first. During the calculations, to everyone's astonishment, the pillars were only slightly susceptible to damage. The steel structure was reinforced in places. For the connection to the abutments called were (Buckling Restrained Braces - BRB) bending stiffness struts developed probably the biggest BRBs are in the US. In addition, additional slide bearings were added, which give the steel structure additional room to move beyond the scope of the existing roller bearings in the event of earthquake shocks. The previous carriageway girders were replaced by a concrete slab extending over the entire width - with traffic continuing. The upgrade work cost $ 74.4 million. The original construction of the bridge cost less than $ 13 million.
Although the road is only two lanes, the bridge now has four lanes separated by a central Jersey barrier . Pedestrians are also protected by Jersey barriers and can walk the full length of the bridge in both directions. The bridge is now 22.9 m wide.
In media
The bridge can be seen in the opening scene of the film XXX , in which Vin Diesel's character Xander Cage drives a stolen red Chevrolet Corvette off the bridge, jumps out of the falling car and parachutes to the bottom of the canyon.
Suicides
Due to its height, the bridge is a notable suicide site. By mid-2016 there had been 76 suicides since the bridge was built. As part of the retrofit work in 2011 to 2015, a railing approximately 2 meters (6½ feet) high was installed to make further attempts more difficult.
Web links
- Auburn-Foresthill Bridge on HighestBridges.com
- Auburn-Foresthill Bridge. In: Structurae
Individual evidence
- ↑ Auburn-Foresthill Bridge on HighestBridges.com
- ^ Auburn-Folsom South Unit Project on the Bureau of Reclamation website
- ↑ The Auburn-Folsom South Unit on the Bureau of Reclamation website
- ↑ Auburn-Foresthill Bridge on HighestBridges.com
- ↑ Jenny Jones: California's Tallest Bridge Undergoes Seismic Retrofit on asce.org
- ↑ Auburn-Foresthill Bridge on bridgereports.com
- ↑ xXx (2002) - IMDb. Retrieved March 12, 2019 .