Alameda County, California Bridges: 580-238 Interchange

June 2014 (37.690452, -122.098853) 580-238 Interchange

In the photo above the E580-S238 Connector OC (33 0436F) can be seen straddling over the W580-N238 Connector Sep. (33 0525G). Today's bridge uses outrigger bents to step over an obstacle. Yesterday's bridge used outrigger bents to reduce the length of the bents on a big skew. Outriggers are nice but they're hard to design since there's less room to develop the reinforcement into the joints. This interchange was designed just prior to the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, which demonstrated that knee joints have to be carefully designed for the opening and closing moments that can occur.

Alameda County, California Bridges: 580-238 Interchange by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.