Placer County, California Bridges: Foresthill Bridge across the North Fork of the American River (8)

November 2012 (38.922 Degrees, -121.039 Degrees) Foresthill Bridge

Continuing down the North Fork of the American River and back to the Foresthill Bridge. We can see the river (considerably diminished from the Ponderosa Way Bridge) on the right side of the above photo. According to the excellent website provided by Placer County and Quincy Engineering, the seismic retrofit consists of strengthening or replacing the truss members and providing buckling restrained braces that act as dampers to absorb energy and reduce the superstructure movement during the Design Earthquake.

Other work includes improving access to the underside of the bridge, removing the lead-based paint and repainting the bridge, widening the deck, etc. All of the repairs and improvements should be completed by the end of the year.

Placer County, California Bridges: Foresthill Bridge across the North Fork of the American River (8) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

Placer County, California Bridges: Foresthill Bridge across the North Fork of the American River (7)

November 2012 (38.922 Degrees, -121.039 Degrees) Foresthill Bridge

In the photo above, I walked towards the bridge (on a hiking trail) until few trees blocked my path only to discover that I was now too close to fit the bridge into one photo. I tried taking a photo, moving the camera to the right, and taking another photo so I could stitch the photos together when I got home.
I used Adobe Photoshop to stitch four photographs together into a single panoramic view of the bridge (above). However, I'm not sure if this provides more information than a photo taken farther away from the bridge.
The American River has a North, Middle, and South Fork. In the Wikepedia Map below, we can see the North and Middle Forks come together (in Auburn) and then meets the South Fork at Folsom Lake. The Foresthill Bridge crosses over the North Fork just before it reaches the Middle Fork.

Placer County, California Bridges: Foresthill Bridge across the North Fork of the American River (7) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

Placer County, California Bridges: Foresthill Bridge across the North Fork of the American River (6)

November 2012 (38.922 Degrees, -121.039 Degrees) Foresthill Bridge

Here's the view of the deck of the Foresthill Bridge. The contractor (Golden State Bridge) is using the eastbound lanes for their equipment and allowing two way traffic on the westbound lanes (at a reduced speed). I believe the bridge has a new, wider deck. In the Google earth photo taken in June (shown below) there is a big gap between the two decks.

In the Google earth photo taken a couple of weeks ago, the gap is filled in on the north side while it's still being used to allow workers and equipment under the deck on the south side. Also, in these two photos we can see that the bridge actually crosses the North Fork of the American River, which is running much higher in June than in the end of October.

Placer County, California Bridges: Foresthill Bridge across the North Fork of the American River (6) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

Placer County, California Bridges: Foresthill Bridge across the North Fork of the American River (5)

November 2012 (38.922 Degrees, -121.039 Degrees) Foresthill Bridge

After Yankee Jim's Bridge, the North Fork of the American River continues downstream for about five miles before reaching the Ponderosa Way Bridge, a pony truss structure that I still need to photograph (I also missed the Eucre Bar Bridge north of the Iowa Hill Bridges). Then the river continues for a couple of miles before it is contained behind Clementine Dam. The diminished river continues past the dam until it flows under the very tall Foresthill Bridge and joins the Middle Fork of the American River.

We haven't visited the Foresthill Bridge in a few years (since my blog of October 2009) so I drove up today to take some new pictures. As you can see, parts of the bridge are now covered in a tarp as they remove the lead-based paint and do other work to the bridge including a seismic retrofit. The estimate on all this work was $70 million and the winning bid came in at about $55 million. We'll take a closer look at the bridge and the repairs during the next few days.

Placer County, California Bridges: Foresthill Bridge across the North Fork of the American River (5) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.