Miami-Dade County, Florida Bridges: State Route A1A Bridge across Baker's Haulover Inlet

January 2014 (25.9000 Degrees, -80.12444 Degrees) SR-A1A Bridge

State Route A1A runs along Florida's Coastal Barrier Islands just east of the Intracoastal Waterway. These islands provide protection for shipping in the waterway from high waves and ocean storms. Breaks between the islands allow ships to travel in and out of the ocean and require bridges to carry traffic on SR A1A. 

The Intracoastal Waterway (to the north) merges with Biscayne Bay (to the south) at North Miami Beach. This is where the Baker's Haulover Inlet between Haulover Beach and Bal Habour is crossed by the State Route A1A Baker's Haulover Bridge (FDOT #870071).

Also named the Herman B. Fultz Bridge, it is a nine span (1257 ft long) continuous steel girder bridge that was built in 1950. The superstructure is composed of shallow stringers connected to deep floor beams supported by large girders on two column bents with very deep bent caps/diaphragms. Perhaps this interesting design is meant to help resist ocean storms?

Across the inlet the girders are smaller, without haunches, and the bent caps/diaphragms are also smaller. I guess the two ends of the bridge were made beefier while the middle of the bridge was made more compact. This design must be pretty successful since the bridge has stood for over 60 years and resisted many storms.

Miami-Dade County, Florida Bridges: State Route A1A Bridge across Baker's Haulover Inlet by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.