Santa Cruz County, California Bridges: San Lorenzo River Pedestrian Bridge

September 2009 (36.9844 Degrees, -122.0277 Degrees) San Lorenzo River Pedestrian Bridge

The next bridge across the San Lorenzo River is an interesting pedestrian crossing. It's a three span pony Parker truss bridge (the diagonal members slope down towards the center and the top chords are rounded).

The bridge is 300 ft long, with a 130 ft long main span and 85 ft long side spans.  It's made of cor-ten steel, which has a protective exterior that doesn't need painting. The superstructure sits on hammerhead bents and seat-type abutments. I would imagine it was built in sections in a factory and brought to the site to be assembled.

The bridge was in planning from 2001 and finally got built in 2008 after a lengthy environmental approval process. It was supposed to cost $2.5 million but ended up costing a little more due to change orders. It was designed and built by a consortium of engineering firms including TRC, Syblon Reid, and Parsons Brinkerhoff. It won an award from the American Public Works Association for the Monterey Area.

Santa Cruz County, California Bridges: San Lorenzo River Pedestrian Bridge by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.