California Bridges - Benicia Martinez Bridge

The Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers flow into Suisin Bay, the Carquinez Strait, and San Pablo Bay before emptying through the Golden Gate into the Pacific.

Where Suisin Bay meets the Carquinez Strait there are several bridges that connect the cities of Benicia and Martinez. The newest of them has a segmentally constructed cast-in-place, post-tensioned box girder superstructure supported on tall reinforced concrete piers.

This structure has a long, sinewy, ribbed shape like the body of a centipede. The new bridge was built after the original truss structure was widened to carry more traffic but began to have maintenance problems from all the truck traffic on the outside northbound lane. The new bridge solved this problem while providing more capacity in both directions.

In this photo, we can see an old railroad bridge (between the two highway bridges) on the right side of the photo.

California Bridges - Benicia Martinez Bridge by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

California Bridges - El Curtola Road Overcrossing

I like bridges with unusual supports. El Curtola Road Overcrossing goes over State Route 24 and the center pier spans over the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) tracks between Orinda and Walnut Creek.

This bridge has a two-span prestressed concrete box girder superstructure, end diaphragm abutments on large diameter piles, and a battered two column bent.

This bridge was recently retrofitted to survive a large earthquake (after this photo was taken). Since battered columns will take longitudinal displacement as an axial force, the columns must resist the earthquake with brute strength. Therefore, the reinforced concrete columns were encased in steel.

California Bridges - El Curtola Road Overcrossing by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

California Bridges - Cold Spring Canyon Bridge 2

A last look at Cold Spring Canyon Bridge. I spoke to the maintenance engineer who said that the little bit of rust was more of a cosmetic than a structural issue in this dry environment. He wondered about the problems of removing the lead primer that was used in the 1960s. However, he did point out that the spandrel columns were currently being painted and the arch would probably be put in a 'diaper' and get repainted next. He also said the Caltrans Structure Rep. in charge of construction is now retired, but he still likes to talk about this project if I wanted to give him a call.

California Bridges - Cold Spring Canyon Bridge 2 by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.