Seine River Bridges: Pont de Bercy

Today we leave the Los Angeles River to travel through Paris along the Seine. The River Seine begins in Dijon and meanders for 776 km (482 miles) before flowing into the English Channel.  It enters Paris between the 12th and 13th Arrondissements and travels through Paris in one big bend of the river.  The Seine flows under three arch bridges (in Paris) before reaching the Pont de Bercy. The Pont National is a five span filled masonry arch bridge on short piers and built in 1853.  The Pont de Tobiac is another five span masonry arch bridge that was built in 1882.  The Passerelle Simone de Beauvoir is a steel lenticular pedestrian bridge (similar in behavior to an arch).  It opened in 2006 according to Archimagazine. 

The Pont de Bercy has the appearance of a Roman double-deck aqueduct. It replaced an inadequate suspension bridge in 1864.  It was originally just a five span, stone masonry, spandrel-filled arch bridge (the lower structure in the photograph). However, in 1904, a second deck was added to carry the Metro line.  In 1986 the bottom deck was widened (using reinforced concrete with a stone facade) to carry more traffic while matching the original structure. 

The current structure has six traffic lanes (three in each direction) along with wide sidewalks on the lower deck.  The bridge is 175 m (575 ft) long and 40 m (130 ft) wide. It carries Boulevard Vincent Auriol and Boulevard de Bercy across the Seine and provides a link between the two arrondissements in the southwestern part of Paris. You would see the Passarelle Simone de Beauvoir (named after the feminist writer) just behind the Pont de Bercy, except it hadn't been built when I took this photo.

Seine River Bridges: Pont de Bercy by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.