Hakalau Stream Bridge

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Hakalau Stream Bridge
Hakalau Stream Bridge
use HI-19.svg Hawaii State Route 19
Crossing of Hakalau Stream
place Honomu , Hawaii County , Hawaii
Entertained by Hawaii Department of Transportation
construction Trestle Bridge
overall length 236 m
width 12 m
Longest span 22 m
opening 1912 (railroad)
1953 (road)
planner John Mason Young (1912)
William R. Bartels (1953)
location
Coordinates 19 ° 53 '58 "  N , 155 ° 7' 47"  W Coordinates: 19 ° 53 '58 "  N , 155 ° 7' 47"  W.
Hakalau Stream Bridge (Oceania)
Hakalau Stream Bridge
Aerial view of Hakalau Bay, 2009-07-25 (cut) .jpg
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The Hakalau Stream Bridge is a road bridge over the Hakalau Stream on the east coast of the island of Hawaii in the US state of the same name . It is north of the small community of Honomu and about 20 kilometers north of Hilo . The almost 60 meter high former railroad bridge from 1912 was converted for road traffic in the early 1950s and has since led two lanes of Hawaii State Route 19which is part of the Hawaii Belt Road. The operator is the Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDT), and the average traffic volume in 2017 was around 7,100 vehicles per day.

history

Island group of the state of Hawaii. The Hilo Railroad (HRC) ran on the east side of the island of Hawaii between Paauilo and Kamaili, location of Blue-circle-concentric.pngthe Hakalau Stream Bridge.

Due to the free trade agreement concluded in 1875 between the United States and the Kingdom of Hawaii ( Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 ) , the export of sugar to the USA flourished at the end of the 19th century, which could be imported duty-free and whose production volume was on the Hawaiian Islands between 1875 and 1890 tenfold. A year before the annexation by the USA in 1898, the total was over 200,000 tons. In order to better connect the sugar cane plantations on the east side of the island of Hawaii to the port in Hilo , the Hilo Railroad Company (HRC) was founded in 1899 . The route network of the first standard-gauge railway on the island extended from Paauilo in the north to Kamaili in the south over a length of 120 kilometers until 1913. For the course on the east coast, a large number of smaller river mouths on the Pacific had to be crossed. These rivers, which originated on the slopes of the Mauna Kea volcanic mountain, formed canyons up to 60 meters deep at their mouths, which required the construction of 43 bridges, including 24  trestle bridges made of wood and 14 of steel. The two largest steel structures were the Maulua Stream Viaduct and the Hakalau Stream Bridge with lengths of 307 meters and 236 meters respectively.

The two bridges were designed by the founder of the Pacific Engineering Company from Honolulu, John Mason Young. The HRC commissioned the manufacture of the steel components at Hamilton and Chambers in New York and built the Trestle bridges during the second phase of the line expansion to Paauilo from 1910 to 1912. The cost-intensive construction of the railway line drove the HRC into bankruptcy in 1914 and led to the re-establishment in 1916 as the Hawaii Consolidated Railway . This lasted until the spring of 1946, when an earthquake near the Aleutian Islands in Alaska triggered a tsunami that hit the archipelago in the early morning hours of April 1, 1946. The tsunami reached wave heights of over ten meters on the east coast of the island of Hawaii and destroyed a large part of the railway systems and bridges. The Hakalau Stream Bridge was only slightly damaged, but the upstream sugar factory in Hakalau Bay was almost completely destroyed. Since the plantation operators spoke out against rebuilding the railroad and opted for road transport, the demolition of the tracks and bridges began at the end of the 1940s. However, the route served to expand the road network on the east coast. Five of the large steel trestle bridges were re-used or rebuilt for this purpose. The components of the demolished bridges served to widen the former single-track structures so that they could accommodate two lanes of the future Hawaii State Route 19 . The reconstruction of the Hakalau Stream Bridge was led by the chief engineer of the then Territorial Highway Department William R. Bartels and was completed in 1953. It was the longest road bridge in the archipelago until the late 1960s and has been operated by the Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDT) since 1959. The average traffic volume in 2017 was around 7,100 vehicles per day.

description

In the 1950s, the steel lattice masts were widened for two lanes of the new road bridge.

The steel trestle bridge (scaffolding pillar viaduct) extends from southeast to northwest over a total length of 236 m. It crosses the Hakalau Stream about 100 m before it flows into Hakalau Bay, which in turn protrudes 300 m from the coastline into the island. To avoid major upgrades during the construction of the old railway line were on both sides of the bridge about 250 m long and up to 10 m deep cuts excavated and today's street level, extends approximately 55 m above the Hakalau Stream (the data in the literature vary between 52.1 m and 57.9 m). The 11.7 m wide superstructure made of solid wall girders with reinforced concrete roadway offers space for two lanes (8.5 m between the curbs) and sidewalks. The superstructure is supported by the two abutments and seven approximately 12 m long (in the direction of the longitudinal axis of the bridge) as well as some 50 m high steel lattice masts, which each stand on eight concrete bases at intervals of 22 m. For the widening of the former single-track railway bridge, the steel pillars were supplemented by almost identical structures on the respective outer sides, which stand on their own concrete pedestals, increasing the total number per lattice mast to eight.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Hakalau Stream Bridge  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ralph Simpson Kuykendall: The Hawaiian Kingdom 1874-1893, The Kalakaua Dynasty. Volume 3, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu 1967, ISBN 978-0-87022-433-1 , pp. 46 f. ( Chap. 3 Reciprocity and the Hawaiian Economy: The Sugar Industry ).
  2. ^ A b c d MKE Associates, Fung Associates: Hawaii State Historic Bridge Inventory & Evaluation. State of Hawaii, Department of Transportation, Highways Division, 2013, pp. 2-22-2-26.
  3. ↑ James F. Lander, Patricia A. Lockridge: United States Tsunamis (including United States Possessions): 1690-1988. US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, National Geophysical Data Center, 1989, p. 41.
  4. ^ Robert C. Schmitt: Early Hawaiian Bridges. In: The Hawaiian Journal of History. Vol. 20, 1986, pp. 151-157.
  5. ↑ Spencer Leineweber: Hakalau Stream Bridge. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, National Park Service, Honolulu 2009.
  6. ^ William J. Hull: Water, Sunshine and Lava: Hawaii and the Engineer. In: American Engineer. Vol. 24-25, July 1954, pp. 10-13 and 34.
  7. ↑ HAWAII BELT RD over HAKALAU STRM. BridgeReports.com, accessed June 13, 2021.