Shanghai, China's Bridges: Nan Bei Elevated Highway

The span of the Nan Bei (South North) Elevated Highway that crosses over Suzhou Creek is as wide as it is long. Instead of carrying utility lines under the deck, a water main and other utilities are carried on tubular steel tied arches on each side of the bridge. This portion of the elevated highway is a continuous, reinforced concrete girder bridge over Suzhou Creek.

The Nan Bei Elevated Highway creates a boundary between old and new Shanghai, between the upper and lower Suzhou Creek, and between the downtown and midtown areas. Elevated highways act as a boundary between the rich and poor, they're noisy (especially without soundwalls), and they block one's view. However, they are probably optimal in high rise neighborhoods.

Shanghai, China's Bridges: Nan Bei Elevated Highway by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Shanghai, China's Bridges: Datong Road Bridge

A view downstream from the deck of the Datong Road Bridge. There's a barrier in the the middle of the deck (in the extreme foreground), perhaps to prevent head-on collisions. Not a bad idea.

Vehicles in China drive (or ride) on the right-hand side of the road. A few countries still use the left side. When I lived in Japan, whenever I made a left-hand turn, I found myself aiming towards the right side of the road, and into oncoming traffic! Being a traveler requires a certain dexterity of mind.

The nice thing about a deck arch (like Datong Road Bridge) is that there are no arch ribs sticking up from the deck or blocking one's view. The problem with deck arches is that they require competent soil and expensive foundations to resist the axial force of the arch ribs.

In today's photo we are looking east, back towards Wuzhen Road Bridge, downtown Shanghai, and the Pudong District. It may seem a little odd to spend several weeks studying bridges across a little creek, but much of Shanghai's history occurred here. Various imperialist powers lived along its banks, vied for the wealth of China, fought wars here, and left behind a strange and unique city and culture.

Shanghai, China's Bridges: Datong Road Bridge by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Shanghai China's Bridges: Wuzhen Road Bridge (2)

A view from the deck of Wuzhen Road Bridge. As I've mentioned previously, I was impressed by how relaxed and happy people are in Shanghai.

There's a concrete block protecting the arch rib at the sidewalk. Someone has written on the block a phone number for people to call who want a fake identity card. There are too many people moving into big cities and so the government issues ID cards to try to prevent this migration.

Note that the bridge has a second, interior barrier rail to protect the arch ribs and hangers from errant drivers. The outside barrier rail is decorated with wrought iron and the sidewalk is decorated with tiles.

Shanghai China's Bridges: Wuzhen Road Bridge (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Shanghai, China's Bridges: Wuzhen and Datong Road Bridges

A closer view of the Wuzhen Road Bridge. We can see the Datong Road Bridge (a blue, single span deck arch) just below its soffit. Because Wuzhen Road Bridge is a tied arch, it sits on seat-type abutments. The Datong Road Bridge is a deck arch, which relies on the substructure to carry the longitudinal thrust, and requires diaphragm-type abutments. Both bridges have wide sidewalks and several traffic lanes.

Shanghai China's Bridges: Wuzhen and Datong Road Bridges by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Shanghai, China's Bridges: Wuzhen Road Bridge

The next bridge upstream across Suzhou Creek is a single span through arch with tubular steel ribs.

The Wuzhen Road Bridge is about 60 m long and 20 m wide. Like the Xizang Road Bridge, it has ramps that carry vehicles onto the bridge and stairways that carry pedestrians from the quays onto the bridge.

Suzhou Creek has an interesting history. In 1842 China was forced to open up to foreign trade. Shanghai became a major port and Suzhou Creek was used to bring goods out from China's interior. The banks became heavily industrialized and the water polluted. In 1998 the City of Shanghai began a project to revitalize the area. There was significant new construction as well as work to preserve historic structures. Pollution was stopped and parks and entertainment facilities were built along the creek.

Shanghai, China's Bridges: Wuzhen Road Bridge by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License

Shanghai, China's Bridges: Xizang Road Bridge (2)

A photo of a busker playing the gehu on a stairwell of the Xizang Bridge. In contrast to most countries, there are very few panhandlers or street musicians in China. I don't know if this is because there are fewer poor people or because such activities are frowned upon.

In the United States, the underside of bridges and especially seat-type abutments are used as shelters by poor and homeless people. This usually is not a problem. When a bridge engineer needs to inspect a bridge, the residents are usually willing to temporarily move out of the way.

In folk tales, a villain, a troll, or even a monster might live under a bridge and prey upon unwitting travelers. This may have been a more successful occupation before people began traveling in fast-moving metal vehicles on well-maintained highways.

Shanghai, China's Bridges: Xizang Road Bridge (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Shanghai's Bridges: Xizang Road Bridge

The next crossing over Suzhou Creek is the Xizang Road Bridge. It is a three span reinforced concrete bridge that was built in 1907 and widened in 2004 from 18 to 33 meters. Its about 80 m long and with less than 10 m vertical clearance above the creek.

Like several other Suzhou Creek crossings, the Xizang Road Bridge has decorated railings and tall spires at the piers. There are stairways to carry people onto the bridge and the approaches are ramped to carry vehicles onto the bridge.

As we continue to move west from the Huangpu River, the older buildings are left behind and we enter a more modern, commercial part of Shanghai.

Shanghai's Bridges: Xizang Road Bridge by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Shanghai's Bridges: Zhejiang Road Bridge (3)

Yet another view of the Zhejiang Road Bridge. The lenticular truss is supported on four stocky built-up members at the four corners of the bridge.

The bridge was put together with rivets, which has become something of a lost art. I read that when the City of Shanghai was rebuilding the Waibaidu Bridge (at the mouth of Suzhou Creek), they were able to find hundreds of older workers that were still expert riveters. Perhaps they also worked on rebuilding Zhejiang Road Bridge in the 1970s.

It appears that the vertical hangers attached to the top chord at the ends of the span are able to slide through the bottom chord and support the floor beams under the deck. The weight of the deck compresses the top chord which pushes the ends of the bottom chord farther apart which lifts up the deck in the middle of the span. However, this type of structure is rather flexible and causes large displacements when a heavy vehicle drives across the bridge. Perhaps that's why there is a 15 ton vehicle weight restriction on this bridge.

Shanghai's Bridges: Zhejiang Road Bridge (3) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Shanghai's Bridges: Zhejiang Road Bridge (2)

Another view of the Zhejiang Road Bridge in Shanghai. In yesterday's photo, we saw the bridge was about 60 m long between the quay walls along Suzhou Creek. Although the bridge has very low vertical clearance, it doesn't appear to have been damaged from collisions with ships or from flood debris.

They were working along the quaywall when I visited in October. It looked like they had broken up a concrete wall (or the pavement?). It also looks like they were mixing portland concrete by hand. I wonder if construction is still done largely by hand in China?

Shanghai's Bridges: Zhejiang Road Bridge (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Shanghai's Bridges: Zhejiang Road Bridge

We previously looked at a lenticular truss bridge in Pittsburgh (Gustav Linderthal's 1883 Smithfield Street Bridge). This type of bridge became popular at the end of the 19th century. The top chord is like an arch that carries the deck in compression. The bottom chord is like a suspension cable that caries the deck in tension.

The Zhejiang Road Bridge was completed in 1908 and strengthened in 1975. It's a single span lenticular truss bridge across Suzhou Creek. It's only 15 meters wide and includes wide sidewalks and two narrow vehicular lanes.

This bridge, like the Zhapu Road Bridge, was featured in street scenes of Shanghai in the movie Empire of the Sun. That film did a nice job of showing the life of privilege of the colonialist families and the deprivation of the Chinese people prior to the Second Sino-Japanese War.

This photo provides a good view of Suzhou Creek. For many years the creek was highly polluted. The City of Shanghai looks at the creek as an important resource and has worked hard to clean it up. Today there are several species of fish, turtles, and other riparian creatures and the creek is no longer black and smelly.

Shanghai's Bridges: Zhejiang Road Bridge by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Shanghai's Bridges: Fujian Road Bridge

There is so much construction in this bend of Suzhou Creek that I'm a little uncertain which bridges are old, new, widened, or removed. There were no bridges until the 19th century and now there are 28 bridges across the creek, and many were built in the last few years.

Upstream of Henan Road Bridge was a temporary pedestrian bridge that was constructed while the Henan and Fujian Bridges were being replaced. That bridge is now gone and so I didn't include a photo of it.

The new Fujian Road Bridge was completed in 2008. It's 94 m long three span bridge with haunched reinforced concrete girders, probably to match the arched style (historic and current) of the other bridges across this part of Suzhou Creek. It appeared to be used exclusively by cyclists and pedestrians when I took this photo (in October 2008), but its a very wide bridge and so it will probably carry vehicles as well.

Shanghai's Bridges: Fujian Road Bridge by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Shanghai's Bridges: Henan Road Bridge

As Shanghai continues to grow, existing bridges are being widened and new bridges are being built across Suzhou Creek. The 100 year old Henan Road Bridge has been reconstructed to make room for a subway tunnel and to add two traffic lanes. The work began in 2006 and was completed in August 2009.

The rebuilt bridge will be 29 m wide, which is 10.5 m wider than the old bridge. Because the creek is only about 50 m wide, many feel that the new Henan Road Bridge ruins the environment along the creek. I know that when I walk under a very wide bridge, I feel like I'm walking through a tunnel.

The new bridge is 355 m long and connects Beijing East Road along the south side of the creek to Tiantong Road along the north side of the creek. The original bridge had arches over the river, spires over the piers, and a floral pattern along the barriers. The new bridge maintains these architectural features.

Shanghai is building or rebuilding many wide bridges over the Suzhou Creek. The new Qilianshan Road Bridge has a width of 38 meters and is the widest bridge over Suzhou Creek. Older bridges like the Waibaidu and Zhejiang Road Bridges are under 20 m wide.

Shanghai's Bridges: Henan Road Bridge by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Shanghai's Bridges: Sichuan Road Bridge

Upstream from Zhapu Road Bridge is the Sichuan Road Bridge. It is a three span reinforced concrete, closed spandrel arch bridge over Suzhou Creek in downtown Shanghai. It has some nice architectural features like spires at the top of the piers and cutwaters at the bottom of the piers. In practical fashion, street lamps have been hung from the top of the spires.

Sichuan Road north of Suzhou Creek began to grow after it was paved and the first bridge was built across the creek in 1860. It is now a major commercial and financial center in Shanghai.

Shanghai's Bridges: Sichuan Road Bridge by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Shanghai's Bridges: Zhapu Road Bridge

Continuing upstream along Suzhou Creek (in downtown Shanghai) is the Zhapu Road Bridge. It's a three span closed-spandrel arch bridge. I'm not sure how old it is, but I believe it predates WWII. At least Steven Spielberg filmed the bridge in his first WWII movie, Empire of the Sun.

The 17 m wide bridge was used mostly by pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists until nearby bridge repairs and tunneling operations caused more vehicular traffic to drive onto the bridge.

So much of Shanghai has been rebuilt in the last few years, that when I used a guidebook to look around the Old City, I found most of it was gone. Hopefully, the graceful Zhapu Bridge isn't also scheduled for demolition.

Shanghai's Bridges: Zhapu Road Bridge by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Shanghai's Bridges: Wusong Road Bridge

I wanted to photograph the Waibaidu Bridge across the mouth of Suzhou Creek in downtown Shanghai. It is a steel truss bridge that was built by the English in 1908. Unfortunately, after 100 years of use the bridge had been removed to Pudong for strengthening. It has since been restored, and photos and more information on this historic bridge can be obtained on Wikipedia as well as other websites.

The next bridge upstream across Suzhou Creek is the Wusong Road Bridge. It is a steel girder bridge built in 1991 to carry the increased traffic along the Bund (the former international settlement in Shanghai) that the Waibaidu Bridge could no longer handle. However, the Wusong Road Bridge is supposed to be removed in 2011 after a tunnel is completed in the area.

Anyway, this photo (looking east) shows the Monument to the People's Heroes as well as many famous structures across the Huangpu River in the Pudong District.

Shanghai's Bridges: Wusong Road Bridge by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.