Nevada County, California Bridges: Pine Street Bridge across Deer Creek (3)

December 2012 (39.2609 Degrees, -121.0193 Degrees) Pine Street Bridge

It's always surprising to me that a bridge can seem part of the urban environment from the deck while appearing part of the wilderness from underneath.  Also it's surprising how a site can appear to be untouched by older cultures, but if you look more closely you can find the detritus of thousands of years of human habitation.

The Pine Street Bridge was built in 1996 to look like the previous bridge that was built in 1903.

In some ways this bridge does look like the older structure. The lacing of the members looks the same (see comparison of new and old bridges below). Also, both bridges are three pinned steel truss arches.

However, the foundations are huge on the new bridge (see below).  The rivets on the old bridge have been replaced with bolt heads made to look like rivets on the new bridge. Also, the new bridge is made from Cor-Ten steel while the existing bridge is made from carefully painted high-carbon steel.

It seems a little depressing that the city was obligated to make a new bridge look like an old bridge. Apparently it's so important for Nevada City to appear old that it is no longer allowed to grow. 

In Jerusalem, which is a much older city, the buildings must be constructed of limestone but they can still build new bridges like the ones by Calatrava.

Nevada County, California Bridges: Pine Street Bridge across Deer Creek (3) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.