Tokyo, Japan's Bridges: Suijin Bridge across the Sumida River (2)

(35.736 Degrees, 139.814 Degrees) Suijin Bridge

The Suijin Bridge is a streamlined roadway structure that was completed in 1989. It is composed of two steel box girder arch ribs supporting the deck with pairs of cables that cross each other (a Nielsen Arch). Haunched, continuous steel girders provide a 515 ft three span river crossing with a 335 ft center span. The deck is slightly narrower (57 ft) than the previous roadway bridges across the Sumida River. The deck has two traffic lanes (and a turn lane on one end), wide sidewalks and big belvederes (a word I learned from The Happy Pontist). The abutments include stone faced retaining walls supporting the embankments. I think the bridge is narrower because we are leaving downtown and traffic may be lighter.

We've studied the differences between Nielsen Arch Bridges, Nielsen Lohse Arch Bridges, and Network Arch Bridges, perhaps for some of the Osaka Bay Bridges. There are differences based on the shape of the tie supporting the arch, based on how many times the cables cross each other, and on where the bridge was built. Apparently bridges in Japan with inclined hangers that cross only once are Nielsen Arches.

Tokyo, Japan's Bridges: Suijin Bridge across the Sumida River (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.