Sunday, August 7, 2011

New Zealand's Bridges: Malcolm Avenue Footbridge across the Heathcote River in Christchurch


March 2011 (-43.565 Degrees, 172.674 Degrees) Malcolm Avenue Footbridge

The Heathcote River doesn't have any elegant 19th Century crossings, because it meanders through suburbs built after WWII. Instead, there are a lot of footbridges to get kids to school and a few road bridges. The footbridges are well-designed to carry pedestrians but they don't have any details to resist lateral loads. Note how the abutment was broken from a combination of strong shaking and lateral spreading during the February 2011 earthquake. However, it is held in place by the embankment and continues to support the superstructure.
Creative Commons License
New Zealand's Bridges: Malcolm Avenue Footbridge across the Heathcote River in Christchurch by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

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