Van Buren Street Bridge

Last updated
Van Buren Street bridge
Van Buren Street Bridge.JPG
Coordinates 44°33′56″N123°15′24″W / 44.5654813°N 123.2565862°W / 44.5654813; -123.2565862 Coordinates: 44°33′56″N123°15′24″W / 44.5654813°N 123.2565862°W / 44.5654813; -123.2565862
CarriesOR 34.svg OR 34 (Van Buren Street) eastbound
Crosses Willamette River
Locale Corvallis, Oregon
Maintained by Oregon Department of Transportation
Characteristics
DesignSwing span
Total length708 feet (216 m)
Longest span249 feet (76 m)
History
Opened1913
Location
Van Buren Street Bridge

The Van Buren Street Bridge is a swing span, steel motor vehicle bridge spanning the Willamette River at Corvallis in the U.S. state of Oregon. Opened in 1913, the black colored bridge was the first bridge across the river at Corvallis and is now the third oldest bridge across the river. Owned by the state and maintained by the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), the 708-foot (216 m) long span is of a through truss design and carries one lane of traffic of Oregon Route 34 eastbound from Corvallis into neighboring Linn County. The bridge no longer is able to swing open.

Contents

History

About 1860 a ferry started crossing the Willamette River at Corvallis. [1] Benton County legislators were able to secure approval to build a bridge at the site as early as 1889. [1] Meanwhile, the county bought the ferry in 1902 and removed the crossing fee. [2] Plans for the bridge across the river were created by Benton County in 1910, [3] and in February 1911 the Oregon Legislature passed a bill that approved the plan to build the bridge. [4] The county signed a contract with the Coast Bridge Company for the steel for a bridge in January 1912. [5]

Work began about June 1912 after a legal delay over funding was resolved, with Corvallis agreeing to pay a larger portion of the project. [6] In November 1912, Corvallis residents passed a bond measure to allow for the city's portion of funding of the bridge. [7] This vote was the first time women were allowed to vote in a Corvallis election. [7] Construction was completed by the Coast Bridge Company on the project that would cost $70,000 [1] to build. [8] Andrew J. Porter was the designer of the span. [9] Funds came from the city, Linn County, private donations, and the largest portion from Benton County. [8] The span was completed in February 1913, [1] with a dedication ceremony on March 11 attended by the mayors of Corvallis and Philomath, as well as the judges for Linn and Benton counties. [1] [8] Built as a vehicle crossing, the Oregon Electric Railway had tracks leading to the east side of the bridge shortly after the bridge opened. [10]

The road across the span was originally two-way, plus there was a sidewalk along the south side. [2] On January 25, 1914, the span unexpectedly opened during a windstorm, and trapped a young man on the open swing span section until the bridge operators could row out to the center span and use the turn-key to put the span back into proper position. [2] The state took over ownership of the span in 1938. [8] In June 1952, the span was opened for the first time in 25 years to allow an Army Corps of Engineers vessel to pass, and the span opened for the final time in October 1960. [2] In the 1980s the swivel became inoperable. [11] The bridge was nominated for listing on the National Register of Historic Places about 2006. [12] In March 2007, planned maintenance and re-painting began on the bridge, closing the bridge to traffic at times. [13] The $2.5 million project was completed in October 2007. [14]

Replacement plans

Entrance to the bridge from the west Van Buren Street Bridge roadway.JPG
Entrance to the bridge from the west

In the 1990s the Oregon Department of Transportation proposed options for replacing the bridge in order to alleviate traffic problems in downtown Corvallis. [15] Funding was never secured and the project was dropped in 1993, but the plans were revived in 2004. [12] [15] Plans included options to move the existing structure to a park, leave it in place, and build a new span that could be located in a variety of locations along the river in downtown. [15] These options were narrowed to two in 2006, one adding a bridge parallel to the existing bridge and the other building a curved bridge between the old span and the Harrison Street Bridge. [12] The existing structure would have remained in-place under both options, and costs were estimated at around $18 million. [12] [16]

If a new bridge were built, the state originally said they would no longer own and maintain the old bridge, which was proposed to be used for pedestrians and bicycles. [16] Linn County's Board of Commissioners supported tearing down the old bridge and simply replace it with a new wider span. [17] In June 2006, ODOT decided to keep the existing span in addition to the new bridge. [18] Additional studies began in 2007 to determine which of the options for replacement would work best for fixing traffic issues across the river. [11] Options now included adding a bypass north to connect with Oregon Route 99W. [11] By May 2009, ODOT had two proposals, one of which would not build a new bridge near the existing span. [19] Both options included adding a northern bypass that would connect to U.S. Route 20 and Oregon 99W. [19]

As of 2015 the plans for a new bridge had been set aside, with improvements to the south bypass and downtown exits for OR 34, OR 20, and 99 W intended to ease congestion instead. The future northern bypass is considered by planners to be a long term goal, as there is no schedule and none of the estimated $250 million cost has been budgeted. [20]

Details

Western side of the bridge Van Buren Street Bridge side.JPG
Western side of the bridge

The bridge was the first bridge across the Willamette River at Corvallis. [16] Carrying one lane of traffic eastbound, it connects Benton County on the west to Linn County on the east side of the Willamette. [17] It carries Oregon Route 34 out of downtown Corvallis, with the Harrison Street Bridge to the north carrying OR 34 into downtown. [17] The single lane creates traffic problems at the evening rush hour with three lanes of the highway narrowing to one lane to cross the bridge. [11]

A swing bridge, its main 249-foot (76 m)-span could swivel on its axis and open to allow river traffic to pass. [16] This is accomplished by using a turn key placed into the turning bolt and rotating the bolt. [8] Six people would rotate the key using a 17-foot (5.2 m) long wood rod that combined resemble a corkscrew. [8] This would turn the 24-foot (7.3 m) wide gear that had 300 teeth along its circumference and the span would spin along 42 rollers constructed of steel. [8] The operators could use two gears, one opened the span in 150 revolutions, while the other completed the job in 50 revolutions. [8] When opened it provided 102 feet (31 m) of clearance on either side of the bridge. [21]

Van Buren Street Bridge is the last movable-span truss bridge constructed by the pin connection method located on the West Coast. [17] Pins were used to connect the trusses, but the technique was abandoned after rivets came into usage. [8] The bridge is also one of only two swing style bridges left in Oregon used for vehicle traffic, [11] and is the third oldest bridge across the Willamette after the Steel and Hawthorne bridges in Portland. [11]

Overall, the bridge is 708 feet (216 m) long and is composed of three separate steel spans that rest on concrete piers. [21] [22] The swing span is a Pratt through truss, and the next longest part a 171-foot (52 m) long Parker through truss span on the western end. [21] The eastern approach is a Warren pony truss that measures 57 feet (17 m) in length. [21] There is also a 19-foot (5.8 m) long part on the far west end built of timber, which was originally a 57-foot (17 m) long steel pony truss. [21] The bridge has 15 feet (4.6 m) of vertical clearance and is 29 feet (8.8 m) wide, which includes a 7-foot (2.1 m) sidewalk and a 18.5-foot (5.6 m) roadway. [21]

See also

Related Research Articles

Willamette River River in northwest Oregon

The Willamette River is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is 187 miles (301 km) long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States. Flowing northward between the Oregon Coast Range and the Cascade Range, the river and its tributaries form the Willamette Valley, a basin that contains two-thirds of Oregon's population, including the state capital, Salem, and the state's largest city, Portland, which surrounds the Willamette's mouth at the Columbia.

Steel Bridge Bridge in Portland, Oregon

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.

Hawthorne Bridge

The Hawthorne Bridge is a truss bridge with a vertical lift that spans the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, joining Hawthorne Boulevard and Madison Street. It is the oldest vertical-lift bridge in operation in the United States and the oldest highway bridge in Portland. It is also the busiest bicycle and transit bridge in Oregon, with over 8,000 cyclists and 800 TriMet buses daily. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in November 2012.

Fremont Bridge (Portland, Oregon)

The Fremont Bridge is a steel tied-arch bridge over the Willamette River located in Portland, Oregon, United States. It carries Interstate 405 and US 30 traffic between downtown and North Portland where it intersects with Interstate 5. It has the longest main span of any bridge in Oregon and is the second longest tied-arch bridge in the world. The bridge was designed by Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade and Douglas, and built by Murphy Pacific Corporation.

Burnside Bridge

The Burnside Bridge is a 1926-built bascule bridge that spans the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, United States, carrying Burnside Street. It is the second bridge at the same site to carry that name. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in November 2012.

Morrison Bridge

The Morrison Bridge is a bascule bridge that spans the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon. Completed in 1958, it is the third bridge at approximately the same site to carry that name. It is one of the most heavily used bridges in Portland. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in November 2012.

Marquam Bridge Carries Interstate 5 traffic over the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon

The Marquam Bridge is a double-deck, steel-truss cantilever bridge that carries Interstate 5 traffic across the Willamette River south of downtown Portland, Oregon. It is the busiest bridge in Oregon, carrying 140,500 vehicles a day as of 2016. The upper deck carries northbound traffic; the lower deck carries southbound traffic.

Broadway Bridge (Portland, Oregon)

The Broadway Bridge is a Rall-type bascule bridge spanning the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, United States, built in 1913. It was Portland's first bascule bridge, and it continues to hold the distinction of being the longest span of its bascule design type in the world. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in November 2012.

Interstate Bridge

The Interstate Bridge is a pair of nearly identical steel vertical-lift, "Parker type" through-truss bridges that carry Interstate 5 traffic over the Columbia River between Vancouver, Washington and Portland, Oregon in the United States.

Sellwood Bridge

The Sellwood Bridge is a deck arch bridge that spans the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, in the United States. The current bridge opened in 2016 and replaced a 1925 span that had carried the same name. The original bridge was Portland's first fixed-span bridge and, being the only river crossing for miles in each direction, the busiest two-lane bridge in Oregon. The Sellwood Bridge links the Sellwood and Westmoreland neighborhoods of Portland on the east side with Oregon Route 43/Macadam Avenue on the west side. At its east end it leads to Tacoma Street. The bridge is owned and operated by Multnomah County. The original span of 1925 was a steel truss bridge, while its 2016 replacement is a deck-arch-type bridge.

Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 5.1

The Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 5.1 or BNSF Railway Bridge 5.1, also known as the St. Johns Railroad Bridge or the Willamette River Railroad Bridge, is a through truss railway bridge with a vertical lift that spans the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, United States. Built by the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway (SP&S) and completed in 1908, it was originally a swing-span bridge, and its swing-span section was the longest in the world at the time. However, 81 years later the main span was converted from a swing-type to a vertical-lift type, in order to widen the navigation channel. The lift span is one of the highest and longest in the world. The bridge consists of five sections, with the two sections closest to the bank on each side fixed.

Oregon City Bridge

The Oregon City Bridge, also known as the Arch Bridge, is a steel through arch bridge spanning the Willamette River between Oregon City and West Linn, Oregon, United States. Completed in 1922, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was built and is owned by the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) as part of Oregon Route 43 and is the third-southernmost Willamette bridge in the Portland metropolitan area, after the Boone Bridge in Wilsonville and the Oregon 219 bridge near Newberg.

Oregon Route 34 Highway in Oregon

Oregon Route 34 is a state highway in the U.S. state of Oregon that runs between the city of Waldport on the Oregon Coast and the city of Lebanon in the western part of the state. OR 34 traverses the Alsea Highway No. 27 from Waldport to Flynn, part of the Corvallis–Newport Highway No. 33 from Flynn to east of Corvallis, and the Corvallis–Lebanon Highway No. 210 from east of Corvallis to Lebanon, of the Oregon state highway system. In Corvallis, OR 34 includes a brief concurrency with U.S. Route 20 and OR 99W over the Pacific Highway West No. 1W.

Boone Bridge

Boone Bridge is a steel girder highway bridge over the Willamette River at Wilsonville, Oregon, in the United States. Built in 1954, it crosses the river to the Charbonneau section of Wilsonville, carrying Interstate 5 into the open Willamette Valley from the Portland metropolitan area. Maintained by the Oregon Department of Transportation, the 1,111-foot-long (339 m) bridge has three travel lanes in each direction. To the west is the site of the former Boone's Ferry, which the bridge replaced.

Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 9.6

Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 9.6 or BNSF Railway Bridge 9.6, also known as the Columbia River Railroad Bridge, is through truss railway bridge across the Columbia River, between Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington, owned and operated by BNSF Railway. Built by the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway (SP&S) and completed in 1908, it was the first bridge of any kind to be built across the lower Columbia River, preceding the first road bridge, the nearby Interstate Bridge, by a little more than eight years.

Oregon Trunk Rail Bridge Railway bridge in the United States

The Oregon Trunk Rail Bridge or Celilo Bridge is a single-track railroad bridge opened in 1912 over the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. It consists of eight steel truss spans and several deck girder spans, and since 1957 it has included a vertical-lift section. The bridge was designed by engineer Ralph Modjeski and erected by the Missouri Valley Bridge & Iron Co., of Leavenworth, Kansas.

Sauvie Island Bridge

The Sauvie Island Bridge crosses the Multnomah Channel of the Willamette River near Portland, Oregon, United States. The original Parker truss bridge, built in 1950 with a 200-foot (61 m) main span, was replaced with a tied arch bridge with a 360-foot (110 m) span in 2008 due to cracks discovered in 2001.

Ellsworth Street Bridge

The Ellsworth Street Bridge is a highway bridge that crosses the Willamette River in Albany, Oregon, United States. Built in 1925, the two-lane structure carries U.S. Route 20 eastbound traffic, with the adjacent Lyon Street Bridge carrying westbound traffic. The 1,090-foot (330 m)-long steel-truss bridge was designed by Conde McCullough and opened in 1926.

Oregon Slough Railroad Bridge

The Oregon Slough Railroad Bridge, also known as the BNSF Railway Bridge 8.8, is a swing-span, through truss bridge in Portland, Oregon, United States. Currently owned and operated by BNSF Railway, it crosses an anabranch of the Columbia River known as North Portland Harbor and historically as the Oregon Slough. The bridge's northern end is on Hayden Island, which, along with Tomahawk Island, forms the north shore of the channel. Completed in 1908, the two-track bridge is one of only two swing bridges surviving in Portland, which once had several bridges of that type, both for road and rail traffic. The only other remaining swing bridge in the Portland area is another rail-only bridge on the same line, BNSF's nearby Bridge 9.6, spanning the Columbia River.

Madison Street Bridge (Portland, Oregon)

The Madison Street Bridge, or Madison Bridge, refers to two different bridges that spanned the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, from 1891 to 1900 and from 1900 to 1909. The bridges connected Madison Street, on the river's west bank, and Hawthorne Avenue, on the east bank, on approximately the same alignment as the existing Hawthorne Bridge. The original and later bridges are sometimes referred to as Madison Street Bridge No. 1 and Madison Street Bridge No. 2, respectively. The second bridge, built in 1900, has alternatively been referred to as the "rebuilt" Madison Street Bridge, rather than as a new bridge, because it was rebuilt on the same piers. Both were swing bridges, whereas their successor, the Hawthorne Bridge, is a vertical-lift-type.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Corvallis Residents Celebrate Opening of $70,000 Wagon Bridge". The Oregonian. March 16, 1913. p. 15.
  2. 1 2 3 4 The Van Buren Street Bridge. Benton County Historical Society. Sign in Riverfront Park, Corvallis, Oregon.
  3. ↑ "Corvallis Wants Bridge". The Oregonian. December 2, 1910. p. 15.
  4. ↑ "Two Bridges are Wanted". The Oregonian. February 17, 1911. p. 6.
  5. ↑ "Corvallis to Benefit". The Oregonian. January 27, 1912. p. 6.
  6. ↑ "Corvallis Builds Bridge". The Oregonian. May 12, 1912. p. 2.
  7. 1 2 Lynn Walker, Morris Walker (January 25, 2008). "Clips In Time: History makes history". Corvallis Gazette-Times.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Lynn Walker, Morris Walker (February 22, 2008). "In 1913, Van Buren Bridge was the span of the future". Corvallis Gazette-Times.
  9. ↑ "Van Buren Street Bridge". Oregon Historic Sites Database. Oregon Parks & Recreation Department. Retrieved 2009-10-09.
  10. ↑ "New Bridge Dedicated". The Oregonian. March 12, 1913. p. 7.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Odegard, Kyle (July 27, 2007). "Seeking a solution to bridge gridlock". Corvallis Gazette-Times.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Barrett, Rebecca (April 8, 2006). "Van Buren's future". Corvallis Gazette-Times.
  13. ↑ "Bridge closure begins". Corvallis Gazette-Times. March 19, 2007.
  14. ↑ "Van Buren bridge to close again". Corvallis Gazette-Times. September 3, 2007.
  15. 1 2 3 Geist, Wendy (November 9, 2004). "ODOT presents Van Buren Bridge options". Corvallis Gazette-Times. p. A3.
  16. 1 2 3 4 Barrett, Rebecca (April 12, 2006). "State shares bridge replacement plans". Corvallis Gazette-Times.
  17. 1 2 3 4 Rollins, Ian (April 22, 2006). "Linn board says bridge should be torn down". Albany Democrat-Herald.
  18. ↑ Barrett, Rebecca (June 23, 2006). "ODOT narrows bridge options". Corvallis Gazette-Times.
  19. 1 2 Odegard, Kyle (May 14, 2009). "ODOT presents Van Buren bridge alternatives". Corvallis Gazette-Times. Retrieved 2009-10-09.
  20. ↑ Hall, Bennett (February 15, 2015). "ODOT starting work on revised project to ease Highway 34 traffic out of Corvallis". Corvallis Gazette-Times. Retrieved April 21, 2015.
  21. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Chapman, J. Sanders (July 24, 1984). "Oregon Inventory of Historic Properties Historic Resource Survey Form: Van Buren Street Bridge" (PDF). City of Corvallis. Retrieved 2009-10-09.
  22. ↑ "Van Buren Street Bridge". Structurae. Nicolas Janberg ICS. Retrieved 2009-10-09.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.