Monday, October 13, 2014

Tuolumne County, California Bridges: James E. Roberts Bridge across the Tuolumne River

September 2014 (37.84167 Degrees-120.37667 Degrees) State Route 120 Bridge
We're traveling east from Stanislaus County into the foothills of Tuolumne County. Today's bridge was designed by Caltrans' former Chief Bridge Engineer Jim Roberts. He often talked about the problems of analyzing a highly curved continuous steel girder bridge in the 1960s. After he died they named the bridge he was proudest of after him. 

The James E. Roberts Bridge (32 0018) carries State Route 120 across the Tuolumne River. It is a 1394 ft long six span steel girder bridge with 350 ft long spans over the river. The substructure is composed of single column bents with upside down triangular bent caps. At one time they were planning to build right and left superstructures but lack of funding or perhaps the Sierra Club prevented Caltrans from increasing the capacity of SR 120. All of these two lane roads carrying travelers in and out of Yosemite Park can try the patience of drivers.

Like many of the bridges in the Sierras the deck of the Jim Roberts Bridge is in bad shape. Deicing salts may have been used and chains and heavy trucks have exacerbated the deterioration of the deck. Caltrans is fortunate to have enough room to put another superstructure on the existing substructure while they repair or replace the old deck.
Creative Commons License
Tuolumne County, California Bridges: James E. Roberts Bridge across the Tuolumne River by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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