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Triborough Bridge Project
Society: ASCE Main Category: Civil Sub Category: Bridges Era: 1930-1939 DateCreated: 1936 Robert F. Kennedy Bridge New York State: NY Zip: 10035 Country: USA Website: http://www.asce.org/Project/Triborough-Bridge-Project/ Creator: Moses, Robert , Ammann, Othmar

The Triborough Bridge Project is a three-branched waterway crossing that connects Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens at a junction of the East River and the Harlem River in New York City. The complex structure includes a suspension bridge from Wards Island to Queens, a vertical lift span from Randall's Island to Manhattan, a fixed span (designed to be convertible to a lift span) across the Bronx Kills, viaducts, and an innovative three-legged roadway interchange.

YearAdded:
1986
Image Credit: Public Domain (National Park Service) Image Caption: Triborough Bridge Project Era_date_from: 1936
Menai Suspension Bridge
Society: ASCE Main Category: Civil Sub Category: Bridges Era: 1800-1829 DateCreated: 1826 Menai Bridge Isle of Anglesey State: Wales Zip: Country: UK Website: http://www.asce.org/Project/Menai-Suspension-Bridge/ Creator: Telford, Thomas , Hazledine, William

Built between 1819 and 1826, the Menai Bridge was the major structure on Britain's strategically important Holyhead Road connecting London with Holyhead and by sea to Ireland. Designed by Thomas Telford, the bridge's main span was 579 feet from tower to tower, the longest that had ever been attempted at this time. He used four sets wrought-iron eyebars to suspend the deck. These were made by William Hazledine at his Upton forge near Shrewsbury. Each bar was carefully tested in his Coleham shops before being pinned together and lifted into place.

YearAdded:
2002
Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Ingy the Wingy (CC BY-ND 2.0) Image Caption: Menai Suspension Bridge Era_date_from: 1826
Sydney Harbour Bridge
Society: ASCE Main Category: Civil Sub Category: Bridges Era: 1930-1939 DateCreated: 1932 Port Jackson Milsons Point State: NSW Zip: 206 Country: Australia Website: http://www.asce.org/Project/Sydney-Harbour-Bridge/ Creator: Bradfield, John , Freeman, Ralph

The design of the Sydney Harbour Bridge closely resembles the Hell Gate Bridge over the East River in New York City, conceived in 1916 by noted engineer Gustav Lindenthal and his chief assistant, O.H. Ammann.

YearAdded:
1988
Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Kevin Gibbons (CC BY 2.0) Image Caption: Sydney Harbour Bridge Era_date_from: 1932
Sewall's Bridge
Society: ASCE Main Category: Civil Sub Category: Bridges Era: 1750-1799 DateCreated: 1761 York River York State: ME Zip: 03909 Country: USA Website: http://www.asce.org/Project/Sewall-s-Bridge/ Creator: Sewall, Samuel

Sewall's Bridge is a singular example of an era when wooden trestle bridges carried highway traffic across New England waterways. It is the earliest pile-trestle bridge for which an authentic construction record exists, and the oldest for which builder's drawings survive. Spanning the York River, it was named for Major Samuel Sewall, Jr., the civil engineer who designed and constructed it.

YearAdded:
1986
Image Credit: Public Domain (State Historical Society of Colorado) Image Caption: Sewall's Bridge Era_date_from: 1761
Second Street Bridge
Society: ASCE Main Category: Civil Sub Category: Bridges Era: 1880-1889 DateCreated: 1886 Kalamazoo River Allegan State: MI Zip: 49010 Country: USA Website: http://www.asce.org/People-and-Projects/Projects/Landmarks/Second-Street-Bridge/ Creator: King, Zenas, King Iron Bridge Company

The Second Street Bridge is a simply ornamented, wrought-iron structure. It is 18 feet wide and spans 225 feet over the Kalamazoo River. It was built to replace a dilapidated wooden bridge that had served the area for nearly 50 years.

The bridge is anchored to fieldstone abutments on each shore, and the deck is composed of wood beams. Iron lattice work provides structural stability and iron finials on the end posts provide aesthetic appeal. It includes a wooden pedestrian walkway.

YearAdded:
1982
Image Credit: Courtesy Wikipedia/Chris Light Image Caption: Second Street Bridge Era_date_from: 1886
Society: ASCE Main Category: Civil Sub Category: Bridges Era: 1930-1939 DateCreated: 1937 1-99 San Francisco – Bay Bridge Oakland State: CA Zip: 94607 Country: USA Website: http://www.asce.org/People-and-Projects/Projects/Landmarks/San-Francisco---Oakland-Bay-Bridge/ Creator: Purcell, Charles , American Bridge Company
Ever since the Gold Rush days of the 1850s, San Francisco Bay area residents and businesses had lobbied for a bridge joining San Francisco and Oakland. Early studies indicated that the bridge was impractical and infeasible; but in October 1929, President Herbert Hoover (himself an engineer) and California Governor C. C. Young appointed the Hoover-Young San Francisco Bay Bridge Commission to study the question more closely.
YearAdded:
1986
Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/David Baron (CC BY-SA 2.0) Image Caption: San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge Era_date_from: 1937
Salginatobel Bridge
Society: ASCE Main Category: Civil Sub Category: Bridges Era: 1930-1939 DateCreated: 1930 Salgina Valley ravine Schiers State: Graubünden Zip: Country: Switzerland Website: http://www.asce.org/Project/Salginatobel-Bridge/ Creator: Maillart, Robert

The Salginatobel Bridge, spanning the Salgina Valley ravine, is the earliest surviving three-hinged, hollow box arch bridge designed by  Robert Maillart.

YearAdded:
1990
Image Credit: Courtesy Wikipedia/Rama (CC BY-SA 2.0) Image Caption: Salginatobel Bridge Era_date_from: 1930
Queensboro Bridge
Society: ASCE Main Category: Civil Sub Category: Bridges Era: 1900-1909 DateCreated: 1909 Queensboro Bridge Path Long Island City State: NY Zip: 11101 Country: USA Website: http://www.asce.org/Project/Queensboro-Bridge/ Creator: Lindenthal, Gustav , Hornbostel, Henry

When opened in 1909, the Queensboro Bridge had the two longest steel cantilever spans in the world - 1,182 feet from Manhattan to Blackwell's Island and 984 feet from Blackwell's Island to Queens. These would remain the world's longest cantilever spans until the completion of the Quebec Bridge in 1917. The Queensboro Bridge has an overall length of 3,724.5 feet. It originally carried two elevated railway lines, two trolley lines, six carriage lanes and two pedestrian walkways. 

YearAdded:
2009
Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/reivax (CC BY-SA 2.0) Image Caption: Queensboro Bridge Era_date_from: 1909
Poughkeepsie-Highland Bridge
Society: ASCE Main Category: Civil Sub Category: Bridges Era: 1880-1889 DateCreated: 1888 Hudson River Poughkeepsie State: NY Zip: 12528 Country: USA Website: http://www.asce.org/People-and-Projects/Projects/Landmarks/Poughkeepsie-Highland-Bridge/, http://www.asce.org/Project/Poughkeepsie-Highland-Bridge/ Creator: Clarke, Thomas , Macdonald, Charles

A bridge across the Hudson at or near Poughkeepsie was planned starting in the early 1870s to primarily carry coal from the coalfields of northeastern Pennsylvania to New England. At the time there were no bridges between Albany and New York Harbor. Horatio Allen, soon to be President of the ASCE, was its first Chief Engineer. He designed a multiple span suspension bridge. Later the American Bridge Company started construction on a five span bridge but went bankrupt before it completed the first pier foundations.

YearAdded:
2009
Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/bobistraveling (CC BY 2.0) Image Caption: Poughkeepsie-Highland Bridge Era_date_from: 1888
Ponte Maria Pia Bridge
Society: ASCE Main Category: Civil Sub Category: Bridges Era: 1870-1879 DateCreated: 1877 River Douro Oporto State: Norte Zip: 4300 Country: Portugal Website: http://www.asce.org/Project/Ponte-Maria-Pia-Bridge/ Creator: Eiffel, Gustave

Built to cross one of the steepest valleys along the Douro River, the Ponte Maria Pia was the first major work to emerge from the French firm of Gustav Eiffel  and Company, establishing Eiffel as an important bridge designer and civil engineer of his day. Resting on a parabolic arch spanning 160 meters, the Ponte Maria Pia was the longest iron arch bridge in the world at the time of its construction. The bridge's latticework construction reflects the later design of the well-known Eiffel Tower, erected in Paris to commemorate the International Exposition of 1900. 

YearAdded:
1990
Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Kate Watkiss (CC BY 2.0) Image Caption: Ponte Maria Pia Bridge Era_date_from: 1877
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Salginatobel Bridge

The Salginatobel Bridge, spanning the Salgina Valley ravine, is the earliest surviving three-hinged, hollow box arch bridge designed by  Robert Maillart.

Maillart's 1901 invention of the concrete hollow box design became a major bridge building concept. In this design, the concrete arch…

Read More
Ever since the Gold Rush days of the 1850s, San Francisco Bay area residents and businesses had lobbied for a bridge joining San Francisco and Oakland. Early studies indicated that the bridge was impractical and infeasible; but in October 1929, President Herbert Hoover (himself an engineer) and… Read More
Second Street Bridge

The Second Street Bridge is a simply ornamented, wrought-iron structure. It is 18 feet wide and spans 225 feet over the Kalamazoo River. It was built to replace a dilapidated wooden bridge that had served the area for nearly 50 years.

The bridge is anchored to fieldstone abutments on…

Read More
Sewall's Bridge

Sewall's Bridge is a singular example of an era when wooden trestle bridges carried highway traffic across New England waterways. It is the earliest pile-trestle bridge for which an authentic construction record exists, and the oldest for which builder's drawings survive. Spanning the York River…

Read More
Sydney Harbour Bridge

The design of the Sydney Harbour Bridge closely resembles the Hell Gate Bridge over the East River in New York City, conceived in 1916 by noted engineer Gustav Lindenthal and his chief assistant, O.H. Ammann.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge, with a span of 1,650 feet, is not only the longest…

Read More
Menai Suspension Bridge

Built between 1819 and 1826, the Menai Bridge was the major structure on Britain's strategically important Holyhead Road connecting London with Holyhead and by sea to Ireland. Designed by Thomas Telford, the bridge's main span was 579 feet from tower to tower, the longest that had ever been…

Read More
Triborough Bridge Project

The Triborough Bridge Project is a three-branched waterway crossing that connects Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens at a junction of the East River and the Harlem River in New York City. The complex structure includes a suspension bridge from Wards Island to Queens, a vertical lift span from…

Read More
Tunkhannock Viaduct

This majestic viaduct was built during the golden age of railroading. It was at the western end of a major readjustment in grade and alignment of the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad, and had double tracks to carry the trains across the valley of Tunkhannock Creek. The Hallstead cutoff (between Scranton…

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The Victoria Falls Bridge, completed in 1905, is a 152-meter span, steel-lattice, two-hinged arch bridge with a deck level 122 m above the Zambezi River. Conceived by Cecil Rhodes as a key link in his proposed Cape-to-Cairo railway, it is situated just downstream of the Victoria Falls in a site of… Read More
Waldo-Hancock Suspension Bridge

Designed by David B. Steinman, of Robinson & Steinman, New York City, the Waldo-Hancock suspension Bridge is a significant example of Steinman's work. David Steinman is considered among the most important suspension bridge designers of the 20th century. He earned an engineering degree from…

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Walnut Street Bridge

The structure has two segments: an East Channel bridge consisting of four 175-foot spans and three 240-foot spans crossing from Harrisburg to City Island; and a West Channel bridge, consisting of seven 175-foot spans crossing from City Island to Wormleysburg.

With 15 truss spans totaling…

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Whipple Truss Bridge

The Whipple Bowstring Truss Bridge was built from a design patented in 1841 by Squire Whipple. Whipple was the first person to understand the stresses in truss members and he developed the first theoretical formula to calculate stresses in the articulated truss. His bowstring truss was the first…

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White River Concrete Arch Bridge

When this 1,850-foot concrete-arch highway bridge was built on the White River in a remote region of northern Arkansas - prior to the construction of upriver, flood-control dams - flash floods occurred frequently, sometimes causing the water to rise as much as one foot per hour. Construction…

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Old Wisla Bridge

Conceived as one of the major structures on the Prussian Eastern Railway, the Old Wisla Bridge at Tczew originally consisted of six wrought iron spans. Due to Germany's invasion of Poland at the beginning World War II in 1939, only three original spans remain today. These remaining spans…

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Howard Clifford running off the Tacoma Narrows Bridge during collapse

Taken together, the 1940 and 1950 Tacoma Narrows bridges mark a significant turning point in the design of long-span suspension bridges. The original 1940 structure was designed with one of the shallowest and narrowest stiffening elements of any long-span suspension bridge yet built. The…

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Lake Pontchartrain Causeway

In the 1940s and 1950s, New Orleans experienced growth. Unfortunately, access from the north to the City continued to be limited by Lake Pontchartrain. Driving around the Lake was a time consuming effort. During this time period, a renewed interest developed to provide a direct connection across…

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Huey Long Bridge

"It remains today one of the great bridge engineering accomplishments for railway and highway bridges built in the country." 
 - Historic American Engineering Record, Southeast Regional Office, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 2005

By the late 1880s, New…

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