New book releases

This spring has seen the publication of some bridge-related books:

• A Bridge Worth Saving: A Community Guide to Historic Bridge Preservation gives step-by-step instructions for preserving truss bridges. I'm looking forward to reading this one.

• Wood, Concrete, Stone, and Steel: Minnesota's Historic Bridges is a timely guide to bridges in Minnesota.

• Historic Bridges: Evaluation, Preservation, and Management is a serious tome about historic bridge preservation. The price tag on this book puts it out of my league, but it might be worthwhile for professional engineers and historians.

• A Missouri Railroad Pioneer: The Life of Louis Houck isn't about bridges, but it does chronicle the life of an "accidental" railroad tycoon from Southeast Missouri. Louis Houck didn't know much about engineering, and it showed. His railroad lines and bridges were quite low budget and primitive, becoming the butt of many jokes. But he got the job done and had a profound impact on regional history.

Permalink · Post comment

Assorted tidbits

• Another lawsuit has been filed over the Boonville Railroad Bridge. The Union Pacific Railroad wants to dismantle the bridge and move some of the approach spans to build a new bridge at Osage City. At issue is whether historic preservation requirements were sidestepped during the process of obtaining the permit for the project.
• Construction has started on the replacement for Kansas City's Paseo Bridge, while St. Louis has chosen a design firm for its new Mississippi River Bridge. Both cities have positioned their bridges as "landmark" or "signature" spans, but these cable-stayed bridges will probably look the same as any of the other cable-stayed designs built recently by other major cities.
• Any bridgehunters in the Tampa Bay area? I'll be in Tampa the week of May 4 on business and might be able to squeeze in some bridgehunting.

Permalink · Post comment

April news items

• The Lowry Avenue Bridge over the Mississippi River at Minneapolis may need to be permanently closed due to shifting of one of the piers.
• The Old Monroe Bridge at Lincoln County, Missouri, is closed following a collision. While this bridge no longer carries Highway 79, it is still a convenient access point for the town of Old Monroe.
• After a 5.2-magnitude earthquake shook much of the Midwest on Friday, bridge inspectors in some states were dispatched to look for damage, but it appears they didn't find much.
• Demolition is underway on the old Hermann Bridge over the Missouri River at Hermann, Missouri. It was replaced by a UCEB (Ugly Concrete Eyesore Bridge).

Permalink · Post comment

Beaver Bridge in danger

The suspension bridge at Beaver, Arkansas, has been flooded twice during the last month. Even after the water finally recedes from White River, the bridge might remain closed because of damage by the floodwater and debris. See photos here, here, and here.

Permalink · Post comment

Dewey Bridge destroyed

The Dewey Bridge over the Colorado River near Moab, Utah, was destroyed by fire on April 6. Supposedly, the fire was started by a 7-year old boy "playing with matches." Built 1915-16 by the Midland Bridge Co., this suspension bridge had the longest clear span (503 feet) of any bridge in Utah. It's unlikely that Grand County, the owner, will try to reconstruct it.

Permalink · Post comment

National Bridge Inventory 2007

By popular demand, I've taken the latest edition of the National Bridge Inventory and produced a set of tab-delimited files suitable for importing into Excel or OpenOffice. Warning: This is a huge 36 MB ZIP file that expands to almost 300 MB when uncompressed. If you just want to peruse a few bridges, Nationalbridges.com might be more convenient.

The Federal Highway Administration only started posting the raw NBI data on their website last year. Prior to that, the agency was paranoid that terrorists could somehow use the data, particularly the GPS coordinates, for nefarious purposes. Thankfully they've come to their senses. In a memo dated May 17, 2007, the FHWA concluded that:

[T]he NBI data does not present information not otherwise publicly available that would likely assist persons in targeting a specific structure or planning an attack on a structure.

The memo also adds this tidbit:

It is also noteworthy that a recent study found that because potential terrorists have numerous options for gathering mission-critical attack information, government Agency data is unlikely to be a primary source of information. The study found that less than 1 percent of 629 Federal data sets reviewed by researchers appeared to have notable value for would-be attackers.

With the collapse of the I-35W Bridge, it's more important than ever for this information to be readily available to the public.

Permalink · View comments (1)

Midwest floods start to recede

On Tuesday, portions of Missouri and Illinois were hit with a whopping 10-13 inches of rain. Many surrounding areas were drenched as well, with a huge swath of 5+ inch totals. This led to record or near-record flooding along many rivers, including the Meramec, Big, Gasconade, Black and Castor rivers in Missouri. The waters are starting to recede and it's not clear yet how many bridges may have been damaged.

Permalink · Post comment

Not looking good for three Wayne County, Missouri, bridges

Two through truss bridges in Wayne County, Missouri, are on the verge of being replaced and demolished, while a third bridge was recently condemned.

• Construction of a new four-lane replacement for the Greenville Bridge is almost complete.
• The Wappapello Bridge is currently closed by floodwaters, but work is underway to construct a replacement.
• The Lowndes Bridge failed its inspection a few weeks ago and is now closed to traffic. Barricades have been permanently welded to the bridge portals, suggesting that the county has no plans to repair it.

Permalink · Post comment

Those darn gusset plates

The investigation into the collapse of the Minneapolis I-35W bridge is revealing that the gusset plates were starting to bend as early as 2003. Let the finger pointing begin.

Similar problems with the gusset plates on the Division Street Bridge in St. Cloud were recently observed, leading to the closure of the bridge until it can be repaired or replaced.

Permalink · View comments (2)

Looking for maps?

Topographic maps are an essential tool for tracking down lost or abandoned bridges. The quadrangles produced over the years by the U.S. Geological Survey often show the traces of old roads and railroads. In the past, these maps were hard to find online, but the situation has improved:

• The Internet Archive (archive.org) has posted national coverage for modern-day quadrangles in TIFF format. These maps include the "collars" from the printed editions, which include useful information such the date of revision and the names of adjacent quads.
• The University of Texas Perry-Castaņeda Library site features modern and historic 250K-scale quadrangles in convenient JPEG format. These do not include nearly as much detail as the ones above, but many areas were covered in the 1940s and 1950s and show roads and bridges from the pre-Interstate days. Also, railroad overpasses are clearly marked, something that even more detailed maps don't always show.
• The University of Alabama site features many historic quadrangles from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Select a state and then look for the "Out-of-Print Quadrangles" link at the top. Unfortunately, the site requires the MrSID browser plugin which make serious research difficult. In addition to the quads, UA also has historic soil survey maps for many counties, another excellent source of bridge information.
• Other sites with historic topo maps are listed here. Coverage is sporadic, but some parts of the country have excellent coverage with maps available in convenient downloadable formats.

Permalink · View comments (1)