Clark Memorial Bridge

Love the second one. Beutiful.

Span 1: Dropped. KYTC photos.

Explosives were actually placed today. They blow it up tomorrow (the 16th).

The bridge is scheduled to be air blasted at 8:00 am on September 15, 2014.

Here is an excellent series of photos of the collapse: http://mdmccoy.blogspot.com/2014/06/ledbetter-bridge-progres...

Perhaps we can obtain permission from Mr. McCoy to integrate these into the main site?

I was the first person on the scene of the bridge just 3 minutes after the collapse by chance. I captured some of the first pictures of the collapse. All pictures are my original works.

KYTC photo from just before collapse.

I dug up a photo from KYTC.

The approach span has collapsed on the western end of the bridge. Guess that seals the deal.

You would think the Transportation Cabinet would be celebrating this bridge collapsing... they were after all complaining that the cost of blowing this beautiful Modjeski masterpiece up was too expensive... if they will just be patient, it looks like mother nature will bring it down for free.

According to the following: http://www.westkentuckystar.com/News/Local-Regional/McCracke...

The same sinkhole that swallowed up the National Corvette Museum is sucking in this bridge. Keith Todd of the KY Transportation Cabinet says, "Among others, Mansfield has requested the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Kentucky Geological Survey to send personnel to the site to assess conditions along the bluff.

“We’ve asked the state Division of Emergency management to come on site to provide additional input,” Mansfield said.

He also noted that with the recent landslide in Washington State, and the sinkhole that developed under the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, KY, officials want to get a good grasp of the situation."

www.westkentuckystar.com/News/Local-Regional/McCracken-Count...

KYTC reports this bridge is in danger of immediate collapse.

I am not ungrateful for any truss even a modern truss bridge because at least it provides a superior crossing experience when compared to a UCEB. However, I would much rather see departments of transportation spend money restoring and maintaining true historic bridges instead of spending extra money to construct a truss bridge when a different type of bridge would be more cost effective. Modern truss bridges tend to be extremely plain. I will be putting an essay associated with two bridges I have recently photographed comparing the two on this site shortly.

http://www.westkentuckystar.com/News/Local-Regional/Western-...

The construction of new bridge is going along, at least this one won't be an UCEB from the pictures already posted.

The bridge now has a 3 ton weight limit. Source: http://www.westkentuckystar.com/News/Local---Regional/Wester...

In the Paducah paper today, it said that the construction on the new bridge has been delayed by the major flooding in the area.

If anyone wondered whether the replacement would be ugly or not, the completed piers should help give a hint. I think they had a contest to design the ugliest piers. Photo from KYTC

The I-526 bridge isn't altogether ugly. It's strange and curious, but it has a certain noséloque about it. The absence of verticals and laterals, a bridge made up of chords and diagonals only. I'll be sure to photograph the current bridge in great detail before its demise.

Matt, you're right. It won't be pretty. But the bridge (for the amount of traffic it carries a day) is failing. They need a new bridge up there. But I totally agree, it'll be pretty ugly. :/

Wow--the I-526 Cooper River Bridge is just about the ugliest truss bridge I have ever seen in my life--modern continuous truss bridges are just plain painful to look at. At least if it were a cantilevered bridge, it would have some shape to it, but this thing is like a naked box. Yuk!! Another beautiful historic truss falls to an ugly modern truss.

Main piers for a new bridge have been constructed just upstream from the existing bridge. The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet is planning to accept bids for the superstructure and remaining piers in the next few months. The superstructure will be similar to the I-526 Cooper River Bridge at Charleston, SC. I can provide photos of that bridge and renderings of the design of the new US 60 Tennessee River Bridge on request. Construction of the new bridge will take 3 to 4 years.

Keith Todd

Public Information Officer

KYTC District 1

They're currently in the process of building a new bridge a couple miles down the river. So far, they've built the piers, but I'm not sure on the spans yet. I've heard rumors that it'll be a modern cantilevered bridge, and it should be open in 2012.

I believe this bridge is scheduled for or in the process of being replaced. Reading some Kentucky news and road info there are articles on this taking place. Also I may have read that the new bridge could possibly be a modern through truss. I could be wrong if it turns out to be a boring plane girder bridge.