Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Mexico's Bridges: Puente sobre el Río (1)

What I like about Mexican bridges (and about many other things made in Mexico) is they show a technical understanding as well as an understanding of the surroundings, of the culture, and of art.

Continuing past Route 56 I took a little detour onto Route 115 and to a village (whose name escapes me). I soon crossed a dry river bed onto a four span steel girder bridge with stone masonry pierwalls and abutments.

I like the handmade look of the bridge. The wingwalls, abutments, and piers look like they were built by a craftsperson. I like the appearance of the concrete pier caps and deck, which were formed with long, thin boards instead of plywood. However, the steel girder superstructure is quite conventional with lots of web stiffeners and cross-braces.

We'll take a closer look at this bridge tomorrow.
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Mexico's Bridges: Puente sobre el Rio (1) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

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