Sacramento County, California Bridges: Orangevale Bridge across Gold Creek (2)

August 2013 (38.68091 Degrees, -121.19427 Degrees) Orangevale Avenue Bridge

A few more photos of the Orangevale Bridge (24C0268). This bridge is 161 ft long with a 100 ft arch span and it's only 18 ft wide between the curbs. I guess that explains why the Lincoln Highway was eventually re-routed onto State Route 50. Still, the bridge carries a surprising 1000 vehicles a day!

On the map above we can see the Lincoln Highway originally jogged into Folsom and only later crossed the American River before finally settling on State Route 50 south of the river. It was in 1927 (when the highway crossed the American River) that the Orangevale Bridge briefly carried the Lincoln Highway.

Still, it is hard to understand how an 18 ft wide bridge could ever have carried two lanes of traffic. The Bridgehunter writes that the Lincoln Highway Association and the Heritage League of Folsom are planning to convert Orangevale Avenue to one-way traffic to try to preserve the bridge.

Sacramento County, California Bridges: Orangevale Bridge across the Gold Creek (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.