Amador County Bridges: State Route 124 Highway Bridge across Dry Creek (3)

March 2013 (38.42888 Degrees, -120.87667 Degrees) Dry Creek Bridge

A few last photos of the State Route 124 Bridge across Dry Creek. The main span is 143 ft long and the bridge is 375 ft long. Timber planking was placed in each bay to help the area bridge maintenance engineer inspect the girders (and for painting). The columns are on oversized shafts to force plastic hinging above ground during a large earthquake. There's a lot of rubble between each column and the river to protect against scour.

The National Bridge Inventory classifies SR 124 as a minor (rural) arterial route but average daily traffic has been steadily increasing from 1300 vehicles in 1990 to 3550 in 2010. This is the only highway going northwest to southeast through the county and traffic was constant while I was photographing the bridge. The bridge is 42 ft wide from edge of deck to edge of deck with two lanes and wide shoulders.

Dry Creek is a major obstacle for highways and roads located in the western part of Amador County. Over the next few days we'll look at some of the other Dry Creek Bridges.

Amador County Bridges: State Route 124 Highway Bridge across Dry Creek (3) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.