Los Angeles County, California Bridges: Ocean Blvd and Shoreline Drive Bridges across the Los Angeles River

August 1999 (33.7673 Degrees, -118.2051 Degrees) Los Angeles River Bridges

A few more miles and we've reached the City of Long Beach near the mouth of the Los Angeles River. Note the concrete lined channel is gone. At this location the river is more of a tidal estuary full of salt water creatures.

The Ocean Blvd. Bridge (53C0927) is a 15 span steel girder bridge that was built in 1959. Sharing the same substructure are the Shoreline Drive Bridges (53C0892L); a pair of 10 span concrete box girder bridges built in 1967. These bridges cross a bikeway, a railway, several highways and the river. This is a very popular area with tourist sites and industrial sites all competing for the same real estate.

Los Angeles County, California Bridges: Ocean Blvd and Shoreline Drive Bridges across the Los Angeles River by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Alameda County, California Bridges: Foothill Blvd OC across Interstate 580

June 2014 (37.73833 Degrees, -122.14000 Degrees) Foothill Blvd. OC

Heading east from downtown Oakland to I-580, which is one of several expressways in Alameda County that have the suffix '80.' 

The Foothill Blvd Undercrossings (33 0335) are parallel (northbound and southbound) bridges that carry I-580 over Foothill Blvd. These bridges are on a high skew and so they have outrigger bents perpendicular to the road supporting the superstructure (see photo below).

Even more interesting is how terribly cracked the pavement and even the concrete bridge superstructure is at this location. The ground must be slowly sliding or subsiding since the expressway was built in 1964 (These bridges carry over 140,000 vehicles a day).

Alameda County, California Bridges: Foothill Blvd OC across Interstate 580 by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

San Joaquin County, California Bridges: The Route 5/4 Interchange in Stockton

May 2014 (37.94917, -121.29806 Degrees) Route 5/4 Interchange

The soaring concrete forms of highway interchanges have a sculptural appearance. The Route 5/4 Interchange is also interesting because it provides a home to hundreds of otherwise homeless people.

The separators and connectors that make up this interchange were built in 1972, near the completion of the big Interstate Highway System in the U.S. Unfortunately, this was at the beginning of Caltrans' seismic design practice, resulting in thousands of previously built bridges that had to be retrofit.

Since Caltrans practice relies on balanced stiffness between members, some of these interchanges are particularly problematic to retrofit.

San Joaquin County, California Bridges: The Route 5/4 Interchange in Stockton by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.