Aug 1, 2007 10:25 pm US/Central
Background About The I-35W River Bridge
(WCCO)
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The height of the bridge above the river was 64 feet. (File)
Aaron Becker
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The total length of the bridge was 1,907 feet, with the longest span measuring 458 feet. The width was 108 feet with 8 lanes of traffic. (File)
Photo from John Weeks III
The type of bridge at a section of Interstate 35W that collapsed Wednesday evening in Minneapolis was a Steel Arch Deck Truss Bridge which opened in November of 1967. The daily traffic count was 140,000 according to numbers compiled in 2002.
The height of the bridge above the river was 64 feet. The river elevation at the point of the bridge is 725 feet with a navigation channel width of 390 feet.
The total length of the bridge was 1,907 feet, with the longest span measuring 458 feet. The width was 108 feet with 8 lanes of traffic.
The bridge's claim to fame was that it was built with a single 458 foot long steel arch to avoid putting any piers in the water to impede river navigation.
The bridge featured an anti-ice system. A series of PVC pipes carried a deicer fluid to outlets that were drilled into the deck of the bridge. When the temperature for ice was right, the deicer fluid would be pumped onto the bridge deck. That system was proven to be successful enough that it was installed on other bridges in Minnesota.
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