Santa Cruz County, California Bridges: Conference Center Drive Bridge and Overhead over Zayante Creek

March 2014 (37.05056 Degrees, -122.06472 Degrees) Conference Center Drive Br. and OH

Half a mile east of yesterday's bridge is the Conference Center Drive and Overhead Bridge (36C0038). This 523 ft long bridge crosses over East Zayante Road, Zayante Creek, and the South Pacific Coast Railroad (now owned by the Santa Cruz Big Trees and Pacific Railway). This bridge carries vehicle and foot traffic to the idyllic Mount Hermon Christian Conference Center.

The bridge is in surprisingly good shape for a structure built in 1930. Maybe it's maintained by the Conference Center? While I was photographing it groups of conference attendees kept strolling by on the timber sidewalk. 

It's a rather odd bridge because it's composed almost entirely of steel wide flange girders. The columns are steel girders, the superstructure is steel girders, and even the timber railing is supported by steel girders. Anyway, the bridge is composed of 50 ft spans and the deck is 24 ft wide.

I also wanted to photograph the Zayante Railroad Trestle Bridge but I couldn't figure out how to get down to it. The only photograph I was able to get (shown above) was from the deck of the Conference Center Bridge. Anyway, it's a steel plate girder bridge on reinforced concrete pier walls that was built in 1917. More information is available from Santa Cruz Trains Website.

Santa Cruz County, California Bridges: Conference Center Drive Bridge and Overhead over Zayante Creek by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.