George Abernethy Bridge | |
---|---|
Coordinates | 45°21′52″N122°36′14″W / 45.3645°N 122.6039°W Coordinates: 45°21′52″N122°36′14″W / 45.3645°N 122.6039°W |
Carries | I-205 |
Crosses | Willamette River |
Locale | Oregon City, Oregon |
Owner | Oregon Department of Transportation |
Characteristics | |
Design | Box Girder |
Material | Steel |
Total length | 2,727 feet (831 m) [1] |
Longest span | 430 feet (130 m) [1] |
No. of spans | 15 |
Clearance below | 85 feet (26 m) [1] |
History | |
Construction cost | $15.9 million [1] |
Opened | May 3, 1970 |
Statistics | |
Daily traffic | 102,400 (2004); [1] 95,500 (2008) [2] |
Location | |
The George Abernethy Bridge, [3] or simply Abernethy Bridge, [1] is a steel plate and box girder bridge that spans the Willamette River between Oregon City and West Linn, Oregon, United States, and which carries Interstate 205. It is also known as the Oregon City Freeway Bridge and the I-205 Bridge.
The bridge was opened on May 3, 1970, at a cost of $15.9 million. It is named for George Abernethy, who was the governor of the Provisional Government of the Oregon Country from 1845 to 1849 and later an Oregon City businessman. [1] An approximately $7 million seismic retrofit began in 2000 and was completed in 2002. [1] In 2008, the average traffic was 95,500 vehicles per day. [2]
The bridge structure contains 15 spans and 60 girders. [1] The total length is 2,727 feet (831 metres), and the vertical clearance at low river levels is 85 ft (26 m). The longest span is 430 feet (130 m) and is sandwiched by two 300-foot (91 m) spans. [1] The bridge carries six lanes of traffic (three in each direction—two through lanes, and one merging lane). Interchanges are located at each end of the bridge: On the western end (in West Linn) is an interchange with Oregon Route 43; on the eastern end (in Oregon City) is an interchange with OR 99E. The bridge is somewhat unusual in that its western approach is located on a bluff overlooking the river, whereas the eastern end is located in a lowland just south of the confluence of the Willamette and Clackamas rivers; as a result, westbound traffic on I-205 travels uphill the entire length of the bridge, and continues uphill for another half-mile before the freeway summits and heads back downhill, into the lower Tualatin River basin.
George Abernethy Bridge appears on the Save Our Bridges map of structurally deficient and fracture critical bridges. [4] Uglybridges.com notes the 2010 National Bridge Inventory in a July 2008 inspection rated its surface as poor (4/9), but said its superstructure and substructure were good (7/9 each). It further noted the foundations were scour critical and unstable and recommended replacement at a cost of $50 million. [5]
In 2009, the Oregon Department of Transportation instead elected to spend $7 million to repave the roadway and replace the expansion joints on the bridge. [3]
In 2017 the Oregon Department of Transportation launched a project to widen I-205 to three lanes between the Abernethy Bridge and Stafford Road. [6] Part of the proposed plan includes removing the Highway 43 to I-205 northbound on-ramp and widening the Abernethy Bridge.
The Steel Bridge is a through truss, double-deck vertical-lift bridge across the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, United States, opened in 1912. Its lower deck carries railroad and bicycle/pedestrian traffic, while the upper deck carries road traffic, and light rail (MAX), making the bridge one of the most multimodal in the world. It is the only double-deck bridge with independent lifts in the world and the second oldest vertical-lift bridge in North America, after the nearby Hawthorne Bridge. The bridge links the Rose Quarter and Lloyd District in the east to Old Town Chinatown neighborhood in the west.
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Oregon OR 126 (OR 126) is a 204.63-mile-long (329.32 km) state highway that connects coastal, western, and central parts of the U.S. state of Oregon. A short freeway section of OR 126 in Eugene and Springfield is concurrent with Interstate 105 (I-105).
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Interstate 205 (I-205) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway in the Portland metropolitan area of Oregon and Washington. It serves as a bypass route of I-5, traveling north–south along the east side of Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington, intersecting several major highways and serving Portland International Airport.
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Oregon Route 43 is an Oregon state highway that runs between the cities of Oregon City and Portland, mostly along the western flank of the Willamette River. While it is technically known by the Oregon Department of Transportation as the Oswego Highway No. 3, on maps it is referred to by its route number or by the various street names it has been given.
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Interstate 5 (I-5) in the U.S. state of Oregon is a major Interstate Highway that traverses the state from north to south. It travels to the west of the Cascade Mountains, connecting Portland to Salem, Eugene, Medford, and other major cities in the Willamette Valley and across the northern Siskiyou Mountains. The highway runs 308 miles (496 km) from the California state line near Ashland to the Washington state line in northern Portland, forming the central part of Interstate 5's route between Mexico and Canada.
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