New Zealand's Bridges: Ensors Road Bridge across the Heathcote River in Christchurch

March 2011 (-43.553 Degrees, 172.657 Degrees) Ensors Road Bridge

A single span T girder bridge over the Heathcote River. New Zelanders do a nice job of landscaping around their bridges. Part of it must be the mild climate encourages low maintenance plants.  

Note the crib wall on the far bank. These are just masonry elements stuck into the side of a hill. However, I've never seen a crib wall fail during an earthquake. In Santa Cruz after the Loma Prieta earthquake tall crib walls were still supporting the side of a hill after slope stabilty failures.

The only damage to this bridge during the February earthquake was some settlement at the approaches.

New Zealand's Bridges: Ensors Road Bridge across the Heathcote River in Christchurch by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.