Florida Avenue Bridge

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**Florida Avenue Bridge**
Florida Avenue Bridge in up position (open to canal shipping, closed to land vehicle traffic), from Lower 9th Ward side.
Carries	trains, cars
Crosses	Industrial Canal
Locale	New Orleans
Maintained by	Port of New Orleans
Design	vertical lift
Longest span	91.5 meters (300 ft)
Clearance below	47.5 meters (156 ft)
Maps and aerial photos Street map from Google Maps or Yahoo! Maps Topographic map from TopoZone Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA Satellite image from Google Maps or Microsoft Virtual Earth

The Florida Avenue Bridge is a vertical lift bridge spanning the Industrial Canal in New Orleans, Louisiana. The bridge has one railroad track, two vehicle lanes and two sidewalks. A parallel high-elevation four-lane roadway bridge is planned.

1 History
2 The current bridge
3 Plans for a newer bridge
4 External links

[edit] History

The Florida Avenue Bridge takes its name from Florida Avenue, formerly the Florida Walk along side the Florida Canal.

Florida Avenue was one of the first three roadways provided with bridges across the Industrial Canal when the Canal was built in the early 1920s, the others being Saint Claude Avenue and Gentilly Road/Chef Menteur Highway.

The existing lift bridge was completed in May 2005,[1] replacing a Strauss trunnion bascule bridge which provided only 91 feet (18.6 m) of horizontal clearance for marine traffic.

[edit] The current bridge

The lift bridge has 300 feet (91.5 m) horizontal clearance and 156 feet (47.5 m) vertical in the up position.[2]

Most of the marine usage of the Florida Avenue site consists of towboat and barge traffic transiting from the Mississippi River, through the Industrial Canal Lock, then east following the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. The lift bridge, however, provides enough vertical clearance for ship traffic as well.

For months after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 the bridge was out of commission, left in raised position for Canal shipping. As of 1 June, 2006, the Florida Avenue Bridge is still closed to vehicular traffic due to the devastation on the Lower 9th Ward side of the bridge and damage to the approaches, but it has been restored to functioning for railroad traffic.

[edit] Plans for a newer bridge

A four-lane, high-level vehicular bridge is planned to be built immediately south of (toward the Mississippi River from) the lift bridge. According to plans in place before Hurricane Katrina, the first construction phase was expected to be let in early 2007, with completion of the entire project in 2010.[3] These plans may be delayed or modified due to the ongoing effects of the Katrina related devastation of the area.