Twin Bridges

I did a very quick field visit to these bridges while on a fast paced drive across Indiana recently. Interestingly enough, the southbound lanes cross a temporary Bailey type bridge on the Indiana side.

I will let the Indiana folks fill in the details.

Here's a twist: The 1932 bridge is actually in slightly better condition than the 1965 bridge according to the National Bridge Inventory data.

1932 bridge -- sufficiency rating 58.8:

http://bridgereports.com/1212713

1965 bridge -- sufficiency rating 49.2:

http://bridgereports.com/1212714

As a Tri-State resident I am thrilled to hear they want to save the historic bridge .

The current plan being proposed is to tear down one of the twin bridges after the new I-69 bridge is built just upstream.

Amazingly they want to keep the 1932 bridge.

There are 3 proposed alignment options for the new I-69 bridge from Henderson to Evansville: West Alternative 1, Western Alternative 2 and Central Alternative 1. Central Alternative 1, which places the I-69 bridge east and away from the US 41 bridges is the preferred location and is likely to be the chosen alignment.

https://www.courierpress.com/story/news/2018/01/31/details-e...

The design of the second bridge was produced by a company called Hazelet and Erdal, Inc. out of Louisville KY. This was before my employment with them. Its first intial in-depth inspection was performed by a team of inspectors (which included me) in 1988 or 1989 employed by Hazelet and Erdal, Inc.. After numerous buyouts, H&E has become part of AECOM.

Sincerely

Dallas E. Montgomery PE,RLS

Burgess and Niple, Inc.

Louisville, KY

502-552-1634

Little sad, spent a lot of time on these bridges in my childhood. I knew when I crossed that bridge I was back home.

I don't suppose they have the intelligence to simply build this ugly new cable stayed bridge nearby on new alignment and leave the beautiful historic 1932 bridge alone. One of the renderings showed the newer cantilever truss standing next to the cable stayed bridge.

So that's great. The Ohio River loses yet another beautiful cantilever truss bridge, and the I-69 Canada-Mexico corridor is one step closer to ensuring that my home state of Michigan gets even MORE truck traffic. As if we needed or wanted any. I-69 in Michigan already has so many trucks that its almost impossible to use cruise control (because they drive so slow) and its hazardous because 90% of truck drivers are half asleep and wandering out of their lane constantly.

New bridge in the future for Indiana and Kentucky. Governors Pence and Bevin signed the paperwork today.

http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2016/06/30/pence-bevin-st...

In the process of doing some historical research on the bridges I found a copy of the original toll card. The toll was 25 cents for a vehicle up to 6 passengers. 7 passengers or more the toll was 35 cents. However, the item that caught my eye was "Livestock on the hoof 5 cents per head." I have a news release with some additional history I wrote for the 75th annicersary of the northbound bridge.-- Keith

Some information I discovered about the original Bridge, Evansville actually was opposed to any bridge crossing the Ohio River into Indiana due to the idea that People living in Kentucky would take jobs from Indiana people. But due to the earthquake of 1812 the river had shifted to its current course leaving a portion of the Ohio River entirely in Kentucky. Thus leaving open the fact that Kentucky did not Indiana to build the Bridge and thus you now have the location of the twins.

Modjeski & Masters got credit for designing the 1932 span but I don't know about the newer span.

Thankyou J.P. for showing me these bridges. I can understand why you love these bridges. Now as for your last comment on these bridges, it would seem to the people who read it that you love these bridges so much that you were "born" on them......hmmmmmmmm???? Now tell everyone the rest of the story.

i love these bridges, I use to live about an hour south of evansville, but anytime we would go to the zoo we would cross these. I use to call these the twins on the river.

My grandfather, AV Burch Sr lobbied for many years and finally was successful after being appointed to the Indiana highway commission, in getting the State of Indiana and Kentucky to construct the bridge from Evansville to Henerson. The complaint from Kentucky was that their residents would cross the bridge to shop and spend money in Evansville.

We used to call these the "singing" bridges. They used to have some sort of metal links for the road bed and made a funny sound when you drove over them.

But the metal is gone and now it has a concrete roadbed.