Singing Bridge

Photos

Oblique view facing north

The water of the Wailuku river on the left, Pacific Ocean on the right, and Hilo's Singing bridge in between.

Photo taken by Ryan Ozawa 2006 Nov 26

License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND)

View this photo on Flickr

BH Photo #246873

Map

Map Links

Description

The deck is a steel grid which creates a singing sound from the tires of cars driving on it.

Built 1950, when the Hawaii Belt Road was built along the old railroad alignment. This bridge replaced a three span Warren railroad bridge at the same location. Two of the spans were reconfigured as an automobile deck truss crossing Kolekole Creek.

Facts

Overview: Steel stringer bridge over Wailuku River on Hawaii Belt Road, Hwy 19
Location: Wainaku, Hawaii County, Hawaii
Status: Open to traffic
History: Built 1950, replacing a 3 span railroad bridge at the same location.
Design: Steel stringer
Dimensions: Length of largest span: 133.9 ft.
Total length: 421.9 ft.
Deck width: 27.9 ft.
Also called: Airplane Bridge
Approximate latitude, longitude: +19.72819, -155.08746 (decimal degrees)
19°43'41" N, 155°05'15" W (degrees°minutes'seconds")
Approximate UTM coordinates: 5/281231/2182748 (zone/easting/northing)
Quadrangle map:: Hilo
Average daily traffic (as of 2017): 16,600
Inventory number: BH 55192 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
Inspection report (as of May 2018): Overall condition: Poor
Superstructure condition rating: Poor (4 out of 9)
Substructure condition rating: Fair (5 out of 9)
Deck condition rating: Poor (4 out of 9)
Sufficiency rating: 42.7 (out of 100)
View more at BridgeReports.com

Update Log

December 19, 2015: New photos from Jack Schmidt
July 15, 2014: Updated by Fmiser: Added category "Steel grate deck"
January 12, 2013: Added by Fmiser

Related Bridges

HCR - Wailuku River Bridge (Predecessor)

Sources

Fmiser - fmiser [at] gmail [dot] com
Jack Schmidt - jjturtle [at] earthlink [dot] net