Carquinez Bridge
Encyclopedia
The Carquinez Bridge refers to parallel
bridges spanning the Carquinez Strait
, forming part of Interstate 80
between Crockett
and Vallejo
, California
. The name originally referred to a single cantilever bridge
built in 1927, helping to form a direct route between San Francisco and Sacramento
. A second parallel cantilever bridge was completed in 1958 to deal with the increased traffic. Later, seismic problems of the 1927 span led to the construction and 2003 opening of a replacement: a suspension bridge
officially called the Alfred Zampa
Memorial Bridge. Currently, the Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge carries westbound traffic from Vallejo to Crockett, and the 1958 cantilever span carries eastbound traffic. Toll is only charged to eastbound traffic.
, was designed by Robinson & Steinman
and dedicated on May 21, 1927. It cost $8 million to build and was the first major bridge in the San Francisco Bay Area
.
Upon completion of the 1927 bridge, the Lincoln Highway
was rerouted over the span. Its original alignment from Sacramento to San Francisco avoided the un-bridged waterways of the San Francisco Bay
and the Sacramento Delta by routing itself through the Altamont Pass
and the central valley. (Traffic aross the Carquinez Strait was by steam ferry
.) But with the bridge built, the Sacramento to San Francisco route was realigned in 1928 to pass along the eastern shores of the San Francisco Bay
and San Pablo Bay
, then in a northeastern direction.
In 1958, at a cost of $38 million a similar parallel bridge was built alongside the original one to accommodate the ever-increasing traffic. The three-lane 1927 span served westbound traffic while the newer 1958 span served eastbound traffic.
In 2003, as a resolution to seismic problems of the aging 1927 span, a new suspension bridge
was opened to replace it, at a cost of $240 million. This new bridge was named the Alfred Zampa
Memorial Bridge, after an ironworker who worked on a number of the San Francisco Bay Area bridges, including the Golden Gate Bridge
. This span features a pedestrian and bicycle path, part of a bike trail which it is hoped will eventually circle the entire Bay Area. The span measures 0.66 miles (3465 feet / 1056.1 m / 1.06 km). The bridge was dedicated on November 8, 2003 and opened for traffic on November 11. (Originally, the plan was to dedicate the bridge on November 15, but complications involving when just-recalled Governor Gray Davis
would have to transfer power to Arnold Schwarzenegger
resulted in the date being moved. The coins minted to commemorate the event have the old date on them.). The 1927 span was dismantled in 2007, after it was temporarily used to hold eastbound traffic while the eastbound span underwent a seismic retrofit, deck and superstructure rehabilitation, and painting to extend its serviceable life. During demolition, the 3,000-pound bronze bell atop one of the Carquinez Bridge piers was removed and placed into storage. The bell will eventually be displayed in a new museum to be built at the Oakland end of the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge.
The new suspension bridge has spans of 147 m, 728 m, and 181 m. Built by the Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company
of Darlington, England, it consists of the south anchorage, a transition pier, two towers (South and North towers), and the north anchorage. The towers are each founded on two footings, which are each supported by six vertical, 3-m-diameter steel shells infilled with reinforced concrete, followed by 2.7-m-diameter drilled shafts in rock (i.e., cast-in-drilled hole, or CIDH, piles). The total length of the CIDH pile at the South Tower is approximately 89 m, with about 43 m of drilled shaft in rock. The total length of the CIDH pile at the North Tower ranges from 49 to 64 m, with about 16 to 26 m of drilled shaft in rock. The design parameters used for the South Tower piles were later confirmed by a pile load test. Additional field investigations during construction revealed significant variations in rock conditions at the North Tower, resulting in the redesign of the length of the piles. Major construction challenges encountered during construction of the South Tower piles, and the revised construction procedure (i.e., under-reaming) used by the constructor to mitigate caving.
By September 4, 2007, all of the original 1927 steel structure had been demolished.
Parallel (geometry)
Parallelism is a term in geometry and in everyday life that refers to a property in Euclidean space of two or more lines or planes, or a combination of these. The assumed existence and properties of parallel lines are the basis of Euclid's parallel postulate. Two lines in a plane that do not...
bridges spanning the Carquinez Strait
Carquinez Strait
The Carquinez Strait is a narrow tidal strait in northern California. It is part of the tidal estuary of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin rivers as they drain into the San Francisco Bay...
, forming part of Interstate 80
Interstate 80 in California
In the U.S. state of California, Interstate 80 , a major east–west route of the Interstate Highway System, has its western terminus in San Francisco, California, United States. From there it heads east across the Bay Bridge to Oakland, where it turns north and crosses the Carquinez Bridge...
between Crockett
Crockett, California
Crockett is a census-designated place in Contra Costa County, California, United States. The population was 3,094 at the 2010 census...
and Vallejo
Vallejo, California
Vallejo is the largest city in Solano County, California, United States. The population was 115,942 at the 2010 census. It is located in the San Francisco Bay Area on the northeastern shore of San Pablo Bay...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. The name originally referred to a single cantilever bridge
Cantilever bridge
A cantilever bridge is a bridge built using cantilevers, structures that project horizontally into space, supported on only one end. For small footbridges, the cantilevers may be simple beams; however, large cantilever bridges designed to handle road or rail traffic use trusses built from...
built in 1927, helping to form a direct route between San Francisco and Sacramento
Sacramento, California
Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...
. A second parallel cantilever bridge was completed in 1958 to deal with the increased traffic. Later, seismic problems of the 1927 span led to the construction and 2003 opening of a replacement: a suspension bridge
Suspension bridge
A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck is hung below suspension cables on vertical suspenders. Outside Tibet and Bhutan, where the first examples of this type of bridge were built in the 15th century, this type of bridge dates from the early 19th century...
officially called the Alfred Zampa
Al Zampa
Alfred Zampa was a United States bridge worker who played an integral role in the construction of numerous San Francisco Bay Area bridges during the early twentieth century. He is most notable for being one of the first people to survive falling off the Golden Gate Bridge...
Memorial Bridge. Currently, the Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge carries westbound traffic from Vallejo to Crockett, and the 1958 cantilever span carries eastbound traffic. Toll is only charged to eastbound traffic.
History and description
The original bridge, a steel cantilever bridgeCantilever bridge
A cantilever bridge is a bridge built using cantilevers, structures that project horizontally into space, supported on only one end. For small footbridges, the cantilevers may be simple beams; however, large cantilever bridges designed to handle road or rail traffic use trusses built from...
, was designed by Robinson & Steinman
David B. Steinman
David Bernard Steinman was an American structural engineer. He was the designer of the Mackinac Bridge and many other notable bridges, and a published author. He grew up in New York City's lower Manhattan, and lived with the ambition of making his mark on the Brooklyn Bridge that he lived under...
and dedicated on May 21, 1927. It cost $8 million to build and was the first major bridge in the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
.
Upon completion of the 1927 bridge, the Lincoln Highway
Lincoln Highway
The Lincoln Highway was the first road across the United States of America.Conceived and promoted by entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, the Lincoln Highway spanned coast-to-coast from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco, originally through 13 states: New York, New Jersey,...
was rerouted over the span. Its original alignment from Sacramento to San Francisco avoided the un-bridged waterways of the San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...
and the Sacramento Delta by routing itself through the Altamont Pass
Altamont Pass
Altamont Pass, formerly Livermore Pass, is a mountain pass in the Diablo Range between Livermore in the Livermore Valley and Tracy in the San Joaquin Valley in Northern California...
and the central valley. (Traffic aross the Carquinez Strait was by steam ferry
Six Minute ferries
Six Minute Ferry operated an automobile ferry service across Carquinez Strait on the main highway between Sacramento and Oakland, California. Each crossing near the present Interstate 80 bridge took approximately 6 minutes. As automobile travel became increasingly popular, the company ordered...
.) But with the bridge built, the Sacramento to San Francisco route was realigned in 1928 to pass along the eastern shores of the San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...
and San Pablo Bay
San Pablo Bay
San Pablo Bay is a tidal estuary that forms the northern extension of San Francisco Bay in northern California in the United States. Most of the Bay is shallow; however, there is a deep water channel approximately in mid bay, which allows access to Sacramento, Stockton, Benicia, Martinez, and...
, then in a northeastern direction.
In 1958, at a cost of $38 million a similar parallel bridge was built alongside the original one to accommodate the ever-increasing traffic. The three-lane 1927 span served westbound traffic while the newer 1958 span served eastbound traffic.
Suspension bridge
A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck is hung below suspension cables on vertical suspenders. Outside Tibet and Bhutan, where the first examples of this type of bridge were built in the 15th century, this type of bridge dates from the early 19th century...
was opened to replace it, at a cost of $240 million. This new bridge was named the Alfred Zampa
Al Zampa
Alfred Zampa was a United States bridge worker who played an integral role in the construction of numerous San Francisco Bay Area bridges during the early twentieth century. He is most notable for being one of the first people to survive falling off the Golden Gate Bridge...
Memorial Bridge, after an ironworker who worked on a number of the San Francisco Bay Area bridges, including the Golden Gate Bridge
Golden Gate Bridge
The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean. As part of both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1, the structure links the city of San Francisco, on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, to...
. This span features a pedestrian and bicycle path, part of a bike trail which it is hoped will eventually circle the entire Bay Area. The span measures 0.66 miles (3465 feet / 1056.1 m / 1.06 km). The bridge was dedicated on November 8, 2003 and opened for traffic on November 11. (Originally, the plan was to dedicate the bridge on November 15, but complications involving when just-recalled Governor Gray Davis
Gray Davis
Joseph Graham "Gray" Davis, Jr. is an American Democratic politician who served as California's 37th Governor from 1999 until being recalled in 2003...
would have to transfer power to Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....
resulted in the date being moved. The coins minted to commemorate the event have the old date on them.). The 1927 span was dismantled in 2007, after it was temporarily used to hold eastbound traffic while the eastbound span underwent a seismic retrofit, deck and superstructure rehabilitation, and painting to extend its serviceable life. During demolition, the 3,000-pound bronze bell atop one of the Carquinez Bridge piers was removed and placed into storage. The bell will eventually be displayed in a new museum to be built at the Oakland end of the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge.
The new suspension bridge has spans of 147 m, 728 m, and 181 m. Built by the Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company
Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company
The Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company is a renowned bridge building and structural engineering company based in Darlington, England. It has been involved in many major projects including the Victoria Falls Bridge and the Humber Bridge.-History:...
of Darlington, England, it consists of the south anchorage, a transition pier, two towers (South and North towers), and the north anchorage. The towers are each founded on two footings, which are each supported by six vertical, 3-m-diameter steel shells infilled with reinforced concrete, followed by 2.7-m-diameter drilled shafts in rock (i.e., cast-in-drilled hole, or CIDH, piles). The total length of the CIDH pile at the South Tower is approximately 89 m, with about 43 m of drilled shaft in rock. The total length of the CIDH pile at the North Tower ranges from 49 to 64 m, with about 16 to 26 m of drilled shaft in rock. The design parameters used for the South Tower piles were later confirmed by a pile load test. Additional field investigations during construction revealed significant variations in rock conditions at the North Tower, resulting in the redesign of the length of the piles. Major construction challenges encountered during construction of the South Tower piles, and the revised construction procedure (i.e., under-reaming) used by the constructor to mitigate caving.
By September 4, 2007, all of the original 1927 steel structure had been demolished.
Carquinez Bridge in the media
- The 1927 span of the Carquinez Bridge is featured on a Season 4 episode of MythBusters in the Miniature Earthquake Machine segment. This experiment, based upon the researches of Nikola TeslaNikola TeslaNikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer...
, employed a small tunable reciprocating mass driver to shake the bridge at its resonance frequency. While not structurally significant, the shaking was felt some distance from the driver.
- An hour-length program, titled Break It Down: "Bridge", documenting the demolition of the 1927 bridge aired on National Geographic ChannelNational Geographic ChannelNational Geographic Channel, also commercially abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo, is a subscription television channel that airs non-fiction television programs produced by the National Geographic Society. Like History and the Discovery Channel, the channel features documentaries with factual...
, on November 1, 2007
- On October 5, 2007 a man jumped off the new 156 feet (47.5 m) high bridge. The Coast Guard, Vallejo Police and Fire responded to find him on the breakwater. He survived the fall.
- Many San Francisco gift shops sell International OrangeInternational orangeInternational orange is a color used in the aerospace industry to set things apart from their surroundings, similar to safety orange, but deeper and with a more reddish tone.-International orange :...
t-shirts featuring a mono-chromatic picture of the new Carquinez suspension span ostensibly as the Golden Gate BridgeGolden Gate BridgeThe Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean. As part of both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1, the structure links the city of San Francisco, on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, to...
, the use of whose image would be subject to royalties.
- Three books have been published about the Carquinez Bridges:Spanning the Carquinez Strait: The Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge (2003) Cal-Trans, Spanning the Strait: Building the Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge (2004) by John V. RobinsonJohn V. RobinsonJohn V. Robinson is an American photographer who specializes in photographing heavy construction work with a focus on bridge construction and the men and women who do the work. Robinson goes onto construction sites and does detailed photo essays of the iron workers, pile drivers, carpenters,...
, and Al Zampa and the Bay Area Bridges (2005) by John V. RobinsonJohn V. RobinsonJohn V. Robinson is an American photographer who specializes in photographing heavy construction work with a focus on bridge construction and the men and women who do the work. Robinson goes onto construction sites and does detailed photo essays of the iron workers, pile drivers, carpenters,...
.
External links
- Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge Foundation
- Bridging the Bay History of the Carquinez Bridge, as well as other bridges.
- Caltrans New Carquinez Bridge page
- Building the Al Zampa Bridge - Site written by Dick McCabe Jr, a union ironworker who worked on the bridge with pictures of the construction and a journal of the construction progress.
- Live Toll Prices for Carquinez Bridge
- http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/ET/popup/200711012100.html Break it Down: "Bridge" on National Geographic Channel.
- http://bata.mtc.ca.gov/bridges/carquinez.htm Bay Area Toll Authority Bridge Facts on Carquinez Bridge.
- http://www.carquinezpress.com Publisher's Web site for Spanning the Strait: Building the Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge, John V. Robinson's book about the new bridge.
- Third Carquinez Strait Bridge OAPC Consulting Engineers alteatives and selection report