Yolo County, California Bridges: W80-E50 Connector Overcrossing

July 2013 (38.57583 Degrees, -121.56278 Degrees) W80-E50 Connector

Continuing west on US-50 we came to a cast-in-place concrete connector where US-50 connects to I-80. The W80-E50 Connector (22 0141F) is a 14 span (1576 ft long), continuous concrete box girder bridge that was built in 1969. It seems like all the expressways in Northern California were built in the 1960s.

A concrete superstructure provides a more satisfactory way to connect a concrete column since the connection can be made wider and taller, the main reinforcement can be well developed, and joint shear reinforcement can be provided. However, the one-way column flare is less than ideal since it reduces the effective length of the column and can turn it into a shear critical member. This is particularly true for the short columns at the ends of a connector ramp.

Yolo County, California Bridges: W80-E50 Connector Overcrossing by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.