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

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 alongside the Florida Canal.

Florida Avenue was one of the first four bridges built by the Port of New Orleans in the 1920's in order to provide railroad access across the Inner Harbor-Navigational Canal, locally referred to as the Industrial Canal. The three of the original four identical bridges are in use today—St. Claude Avenue, Almonaster Avenue, and Seabrook. While St. Claude Bridge no longer carries rail service, Seabrook remains dedicated to rail service only. Almonaster Avenue Bridge provides both. The original Florida Avenue Bridge was removed in 2000 as a hazard to marine navigation and replaced with the current modern, steel structure which was completed in May 2005. It was designed by Modjeski and Masters, Inc. and built by American Bridge with a total project cost of approximately $47 million. The new bridge was primarily funded by the United States Coast Guard under a Truman-Hobbs appropriation.

[edit] The current bridge

The new bridge has a horizontal clearance of 300 feet and 156 feet (47.5 m) vertical clearance above the low water level in the fully raised position. In the lowered position, the vertical clearance is less than five feet above the low water level. position.[1]

Most of the marine usage of the Florida Avenue site consists of towboat and barge traffic transiting from the Mississippi River, through the Corps of Engineer's Industrial Canal Lock, then east following the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. The lift bridge is capable of sufficient vertical clearance for ship traffic.

The bridge has undergone repairs due to the August 29, 2005 Hurricane Katrina storm surge. The bridge was raised immediately following the storm so as to not impeded waterway traffic. The Port of New Orleans anticipates re-opening the bridge to vehicular traffic in September 2007 during daylight hours, Monday thru Friday.

[edit] Plans for a newer bridge

A parallel, four-lane, vehicular only, high-leve, fixed bridge is planned to be built immediately south of (toward the Mississippi River from) the lift bridge by the Louisiana State Department of Transportation and Development. Design is underway, and the first phase of construction is scheduled for March 2008.[2]