Infrastructure degrades over time. Roads crack, steel corrodes and eventually every means of transportation needs replacing. That was certainly the case for the 87 year old Sellwood Bridge in Portland, Oregon.
Back in 2004 an examination of the Sellwood Bridge’s condition uncovered cracks along its truss span. As a precaution, the city of Portland lowered the bridge’s weight limit from 32 tons to 10 tons. This dramatic decrease meant that heavier vehicles had to reroute.
For the past 9 years that’s been the story, but now the city has decided to create a new bridge. Rather than demolish the Sellwood span, a team of engineers was hired to move it... all in one piece. Moving the 3,400 ton span represents one of the largest bridge movements in history.
Over the course of this past weekend, a team of engineers used hydraulic jacks to raise the bridge’s span off the old concrete piers. Once raised, horizontal jacks were put in place and were used to push the span across steel translation beams where it came to rest on a separate set of piers.
According to the SellwoodBridge.org, moving the bridge not only saved the city between 5 and 10 million dollars, but it also reduced the construction time of the new bridge by up to a year.
Watch the Video of the Bridge’s Move Below:
Images and Video Courtesy of Oregon Live