Dick Henderson Memorial Bridge

This bridge has been replaced by a modern 3 lane bridge. It is laid out as 1 lane uphill and 2 lanes down. There was no room for a second bridge, or anything wider than 3 lanes. It is beautiful and safe and well lit, but it still is sad to see an old bridge go. It was severely rusted and structurally deficient and had a 5 ton weight limit. There were concerns that it could collapse like the old Silver Bridge in Point Pleasant in the 1960's. Please update the page. There are not very many crossings across the Kanawha River and they are miles apart, so the bridge replacement increased commute times by many minutes up to at least an hour at times. Love the website and I also love bridges and tunnels too.

I'll be honest with you, I hated going across this bridge. It's very narrow and makes for a stressful crossing, especially during rush hour. But, although I hated crossing it, I hate to see it replaced with something that has little to no personality and no historical significance. I wish they could have done the same thing to this one that they did to the Winfield Toll Bridge - even though they are different types of bridges.

Demolition photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wvdot/sets/72157632483584825

But your recommendations are too logical Nathan. That would be like my professor telling The Powers That Be to consolidate the education department into one large building after renovating the campus as opposed to having them be in parts of three buildings in different ends. Too logical. It makes too much sense, so the result was it did not happen. But you know if you like to walk around a lot then that's a deal for you ...

Railings are not primary structural elements of a cantilever truss bridge. Deteriorated railings do not justify structure replacement. If the ADT is accurate, that is a lot of a traffic for a 20 foot roadway. My recommendation for a project at this location would be to construct a second bridge, rehabilitate the existing bridge, and form a one-way couplet of bridges. Having two separate bridges makes it possible to shut down one bridge for repair without complete road closure, and it also preserves a historic bridge type that is very rare in West Virginia.

They have a vote going on with the design for the new bridge. The winner seems to be a haunched plate girder. By the look of this truss, it looks too narrow as well as what the last guy said about the rusting railings

this has gone on to long the railings are rusted off on the bottom , if a car hits them they are in the river. it should have been done a while ago. GETTER DONE