Noyo River Bridge Awarded

A California project has been named along with nine other national winners in Portland Cement Association's (PCA) 10th Biennial Bridge Awards Competition. The competition, instituted in 1988, recognizes excellence in design and construction of concrete bridges.

The 2006 program drew 79

Winning projects were picked by a jury of three prominent bridge professionals. The criteria included economy, functionality and creativity. Panel members were Daniel Dorgan, state bridge engineer, Minnesota Department of Transportation; Mary Lou Ralls, Ralls Newman, LLC, Austin, Texas; and Louis Triandafilou, high performance structural materials specialist, FHWA Resource Center, Baltimore, Md. The winners will be recognized at the American Concrete Institute's Fall Convention in Denver.

The 2006 winning projects:

• Noyo River Bridge, Fort Bragg, Calif.

• The Guadalupe County I-40 Overpass Bridges, Guadalupe County, N.M.

• Elk Avenue/Doe River Bridge Rehabilitation, Elizabethtown, Tenn.

• Moose Creek Bridge, Timmins, Ontario, Canada

• Perry Street Bridge, Napoleon, Ohio

• Brady Street Bridge, Milwaukee, Wis.

• University Avenue Arched Pier Bridge over I-74, Peoria, Ill.

• Four Bears Bridge, New Town, N.D.

• County Road 453 over Battleground Creek Bridge, Coupland, Texas

• Wapello County Mars Hill Bridge, Wapello County, Iowa

Comments On California's Winner

Noyo River Bridge — All of the challenges faced by the designers of this bridge can be attributed to just one cause: site constraints. However, these very limitations were responsible for the unique design features and the resulting picturesque bridge structure.

The three-span four-lane cast-in-place concrete post-tensioned box girder bridge is 874 feet long with a main span of 327 feet. Structural challenges included a staged construction since the new bridge alignment was the same as the old one, mass concrete application and high seismicity with soil liquefaction. The builders also need to be sensitive to environmental issues that included the protection of marine life, Native American concerns, dominant fishing industry issues, and impact on area tourism. But the public's main concern was the aesthetics — the view of the harbor through the bridge and of the view of the jetty below the bridge had to be preserved.

Project Principals: California Department of Transportation, owner, engineer and architect; MCM Construction Inc., contractor; and Granite Construction Company and Baxman Gravel Company Inc., concrete supplier.

Jury Comments: The designers did a great job of meeting the community's needs while addressing a myriad of challenging site constraints. The public wanted a gem, and they got one.