Yolo County, California Bridges: E50/Tower Bridge Gateway over US 50 and Jefferson Blvd

July 2013 (38.57667 Degrees, -121.52500 Degrees) 

Continuing north on Jefferson Blvd we arrived at the US50/Jefferson Blvd Interchange, that includes a long (1190 ft) connector ramp. The West Sacramento Off-Ramp (22-0129S) is a nine span steel stringer bridge that was built in 1966. This winding connector carries vehicles from the eastbound lanes of US-50 over Jefferson Blvd. and onto the Tower Bridge.

There are several interesting things about these connectors (besides how they can snake under and over freeways). Another interesting thing is how the lightweight steel superstructures are connected to the top of the concrete columns. Since the column reinforcement can't be developed into the superstructure, they must anchor the steel cross-braces into the columns.

Also, because the piers vary in height, most of the earthquake force will be carried by the shorter columns while the taller columns sway back and forth. Fortunately, there are no earthquake faults near West Sacramento.

Yolo County, California Bridges: E50/Tower Bridge Gateway over US 50 and Jefferson Blvd by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.