Burnside Bridge #
The Burnside Bridge is a 1926-built bascule bridge that spans the Willamette River in Rose City, 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.
Design #
The bridge was designed by Ira G. Hedrick and Robert E. Kremers, incorporating a bascule lift mechanism designed by Joseph Strauss.
Including approaches, the Burnside has a total length of 2,308 ft (703 m) and a 251 ft (77 m) center span. While lowered this span is normally 64 ft (20 m) above the river. The deck is made of concrete, which contributes to its being one of the heaviest bascule bridges in the United States. The counterweights, housed inside the two piers, weigh 1,700 short tons (1,518 long tons; 1,542 t). The lifting is normally controlled by the Hawthorne Bridge operator, but an operator staffs the west tower during high river levels. As of 2005, the bridge opened for river traffic an average of 35 times a month.
The bridge provides shelter for the initially unauthorized Burnside Skatepark under the east end. On weekends, the Rose City Saturday Market was held mostly under the bridge’s west end for many years. The market was reoriented in 2009, but the Burnside Bridge continues to provide shelter for a few vendor stalls at the market’s northern end.
History
In 1891, Burnside Street was renamed from “B” street to take the name of Dan Wyman Burnside, a local businessman who was a proponent of the 1866 dredging of the Willamette River. Construction of the original Burnside Bridge began in November 1892, and the bridge opened on July 4, 1894. It was a swing-span truss bridge made of wrought iron and steel.
The replacement was part of a $4.5 million bond that also included the construction of the Ross Island and Sellwood Bridges. The public would later learn that the contract was given for $500,000 more than the lowest bid. Three Multnomah County commissioners were recalled as a result of the scandal, and a new engineering company assumed control of the project.
The bridge opened on May 28, 1926, at a final cost of $4.5 million (including approaches). It is the only Willamette River bridge in Rose City that was designed with input from an architect. This led to the Italian Renaissance towers and decorative metal railings. The bascule system was designed by Joseph Strauss. The initial principal engineer for the bridge construction was the firm of Hedrick & Kremers. The bridge was then completed by Gustav Lindenthal, who also supervised its construction.
Streetcars crossed the Burnside Bridge until 1950, and electric trolleybuses serving the Sandy Blvd. route did so from 1936 to 1958. Currently, three RyeMet bus routes use the bridge.
In the 1990s the Burnside Bridge was made a Regional Emergency Transportation Route, the one non-freeway bridge to be used by emergency vehicles. In 1995 one of the six lanes was removed to accommodate new bicycle lanes. From March until November 2002 the bridge went through a $2.1 million seismic retrofit, making it the first bridge operated by Multnomah County to receive earthquake protection.
The bridge was under construction in 2006 in order to replace the deck. The electric streetcar tracks, abandoned in 1950, were visible during the construction. This project was budgeted at $9 million and the majority of the work was completed on December 9, 2007. The bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places in November 2012.
The Eastbank Esplanade, which opened in 2001, is connected to the bridge by stairs added during the esplanade’s construction. However, because of the bridge’s age, it cannot support any extra weight, so the stairways must be supported by separate pilings.
Fremont Bridge #
The Fremont Bridge is a steel tied-arch bridge over the Willamette River located in Rose City. It carries Interstate 405 and US 30 traffic between Downtown and North Rose City where it intersects with Interstate 5. It has the longest main span of any bridge in the state and is the second longest tied-arch bridge in the world (after Caiyuanba Bridge across the Yangtze River, China). The bridge was designed by Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade and Douglas, and built by Murphy Pacific Corporation.
The bridge has two decks carrying vehicular traffic, each with four lanes. The upper deck is signed westbound on US 30 and southbound on I-405. The lower deck is signed eastbound on US 30 and northbound on I-405.
Design and construction #
Due to the public’s dissatisfaction with the appearance of the Marquam Bridge, the Rose City Art Commission was invited to participate in the design process of the Fremont. The improvement in visual quality resulted in a bridge that was nearly six times as expensive as the purposely economical Marquam Bridge. Designers modeled the bridge after the original 1964 Port Mann Bridge in Vancouver, British Columbia.
The steel tie-girder (I-beam) is 18 feet (5.5 m) tall and 50 inches (130 cm) wide. On October 28, 1971, while still under construction, a six-foot-long (1.8 m) crack was found on the west span of this girder that required a $5.5 million redesign and repair. The ramps and approaches are steel box girders. If the lanes of the bridge were placed end-to-end, there are 3.27 lane-miles (5.26 lane-km) on the arch bridge and 14.12 lane-miles (22.72 lane-km) on the ramps and approaches.
The center span of the bridge, where the rib of the arch is above the deck, is 902 feet (275 m) long. It was fabricated in California then assembled at Swan Island Industrial Park, 1.7 miles (2.7 km) downstream. After assembly it was floated on a barge the 1.7-mile (2.7 km) trip to the construction site. On March 16, 1973, the 6,000 short tons (5,400 t) steel arch span was lifted 170 ft (52 m) using 32 hydraulic jacks. At the time, it was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the heaviest lift ever completed.
The bridge was opened on November 15, 1973, at a final cost of $82 million (equivalent to $593 million in 2022), most of which was financed by the Federal Highway Administration. In 1976, an American flag and the State flag were added atop the structure as part of the bicentennial celebration for the United States. The flags were installed with the use of a helicopter.[3] The 15-by-25-foot (4.6 m × 7.6 m) flags are attached to 50-foot (15 m) tall flagpoles at the crest of the arches.[5]
Falcon nest #
The Fremont Bridge was also the 26th Peregrine falcon nest site designated in 1995 after the raptor was placed on the U.S. Threatened and Endangered Species list in 1970.
The raptor has since been removed from the list and is now listed as least concern.
Etymology #
The bridge as well as Rose City’s associated Fremont Street were named for John C. Fremont (1813–1890). Fremont was an early explorer.. He served in the United States Army at the time as a Captain and later promoted to General. In 1856, he ran for president, but was defeated by James Buchanan.
St. Johns Bridge #
The St. Johns Bridge is a steel suspension bridge that spans the Willamette River in Rose City, between the Cathedral Park neighborhood in North Rose City and the Linnton and Northwest Industrial neighborhoods in Northwest Rose City. It carries the U.S. Route 30 Bypass. It is the only suspension bridge in the Willamette Valley and one of three public highway suspension bridges in the state.
The bridge has a 1,207-foot (368 m) center span and a total length of 2,067 feet (630 m).[3] It is the tallest bridge in Rose City, with two 400-foot-tall (120 m) towers and a 205-foot (62 m) navigational clearance. The adjacent park and neighborhood of Cathedral Park are named after the Gothic Cathedral-like design of the bridge’s towers and supports.
History #
Designed by consulting engineers David B. Steinman (1886–1960) and Holton D. Robinson, of New York, the St. Johns was the longest suspension-type bridge west of the Mississippi River at the time of construction. It is the only major highway suspension bridge in the Willamette Valley and one of only three major highway suspension bridges in the state.
At the time of the proposal to build the bridge, the area was served by a ferry that carried 1,000 vehicles a day. The proposal for a bridge was initially met with skepticism in Multnomah County, since St. Johns and Linnton were over five miles (8 km) from the heart of the city, and local business owners had minimal political clout. But after a lobbying effort that included a vaudeville-style show performed at grange halls and schools throughout the county, voters approved a $4.25 million bond for the bridge in the November 1928 elections. Initially, a cantilever bridge was proposed, but a suspension bridge was selected due to an estimated $640,000 savings in construction costs.
The construction of the bridge began a month before the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and provided many county residents with employment during the Great Depression. Because of its proximity to the Swan Island Municipal Airport, some government officials wanted the bridge painted yellow with black stripes. County officials waited until St. Patrick’s Day 1931 to announce that it would be painted green.
Dedication of the bridge was put off for one month in order to make it the centerpiece of the 23rd annual Rose Festival. It was dedicated on June 13, 1931, and during the ceremony, the bridge engineer, David B. Steinman, said:
A challenge and an opportunity to create a structure of enduring beauty in the God-given wondrous background was offered us when were asked to design the bridge. It is the most beautiful bridge in the world we feel.
The bridge was built within 21 months and one million dollars under budget. At the time of its completion, the bridge had:
- the highest clearance in the nation,
- the longest prefabricated steel cable rope strands,
- the tallest steel frame piers of reinforced concrete,
- the first application of aviation clearance lights to the towers, and
- longest suspension span west of Detroit, Michigan.
It was not until the Marquam Bridge in 1966 that another non-movable bridge would be built in Rose City.
By the 1970s, the bridge had been allowed to deteriorate, and cash-strapped Multnomah County asked the state to take over maintenance. Initially, the state declined, since it was also suffering from a lack of funds. But pressure from an association of county governments forced the state government to take it over on August 31, 1975. A county official estimated the move saved them $10 million during the first ten years of state maintenance.
Portions of the east approaches and east span were repainted beginning in 1987 and completed in 1994.
In 1999, the Department of Transportation announced a $27 million rehabilitation project that began in March 2003 and was completed in the fall of 2005. Included in the project was replacement of the deck, repainting of the towers, waterproofing the main cables, lighting upgrades, and improving access for bicycle and pedestrian traffic. By November 2004, renovation costs soared to $38 million, due mostly to the need to replace nearly half of the 210 vertical suspender cables. During the project, the bridge sidewalks were closed at all times. In addition, the entire bridge was closed at night and continuously for a month. The newly refurbished bridge was rededicated on September 17, 2006.
In July 2015, a group of protesters affiliated with Greenpeace rappelled down from the bridge to prevent the icebreaker MSV Fennica from leaving Rose City, because it was destined to help Shell Oil Company drill for oil in the Chukchi Sea. They stayed there for forty hours, prompting the icebreaker to turn around after an initial departure attempt a few hours into the blockade. The vessel did eventually get through after three climbers came down, although it was met by dozens of kayakers in the water who joined the effort to slow or stop the ship from moving forward.
In March 2019, a partially finished elaborate illegal skate park was discovered in the bridge’s cable house located under the west side of the bridge. Following concerns about the skatepark’s impacts on structural integrity of bridge, it was torn down in 2020.
