New Zealand's Bridges: Fifield Footbridge across the Heatchcote River in Christchurch

March 2011 (-43.555 Degrees, 172.660 Degrees) Fifield Footbridge

Driving west from the Ferrymead Bridge I photographed the Rutherford Bridge and parallel highway/railway bridges over the Heathcote River from the car before we stopped in a residential neighborhood to look at some small foot and roadway bridges.  

Fifield Footbridge is composed of two tubular steel elements (with the rail acting as a verendeel truss) supported on steel hammerhead bents. Footbridges in Christchurch don't appear to be designed for earthquakes. The tubular elements on this bridge broke at the bents, which must have translated and rotated during the earthquake. However even the collapse of this bridge was unlikely to be a life safety issue.

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