Fred Hartman Bridge

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Fred Hartman Bridge
Official name Fred Hartman Bridge
Carries 8 lanes of SH 146
Crosses Houston Ship Channel
Locale Harris County, south of Baytown, Texas and north of La Porte, Texas
Maintained by Texas Department of Transportation
Design fan arranged cable-stayed bridge
Material cables: polymer-wrapped twisted steel wire bundles
pylons: reinforced concrete
main deck: reinforced concrete
approach deck: precast prestressed concrete[1]
Total length 4.185 kilometres (2.60 mi)[1]
Width 47 metres (154 ft)[1]
Height 133 metres (436 ft) (pylon)[1]
Longest span 381 meters (1,250 feet)[1]
Vertical clearance 80.6 meters (262 feet)
Clearance below 54.8 meters (178 feet)
Construction begin 1986[1]
Construction end 1995[1]
Opened September 27, 1995 (1995-09-27)[1]
Toll none
Coordinates 29°42′12″N 95°01′03″W / 29.70347°N 95.01742°W / 29.70347; -95.01742Coordinates: 29°42′12″N 95°01′03″W / 29.70347°N 95.01742°W / 29.70347; -95.01742
Location on a map of Texas

The Fred Hartman Bridge or Baytown Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge in the U.S. state of Texas,[2] spanning the Houston Ship Channel. The bridge carries 2.6 miles (4 km) of State Highway 146, between the cities of Baytown, Texas and La Porte, Texas[2] [3] (east of Houston). It is expected to carry State Highway 99, the Grand Parkway when it is completed around Houston.[citation needed]

The bridge, named for Fred Hartman (1908–1991), the editor and publisher of the Baytown Sun from 1950 to 1974, is the longest cable-stayed bridge in Texas, and one of only three such bridges in the state, the others being the Veterans Memorial Bridge in Orange County, Texas and the Bluff Dale Suspension Bridge in Erath County, Texas. It is the seventy-seventh largest bridge in the world. The construction cost of the bridge was $117.5 million.

Fred Hartman Bridge

The bridge replaced the Baytown Tunnel (of depth clearance 40 feet or 12.2 m).[4] The tunnel had to be removed when the Houston Ship Channel was deepened to 45 feet (13.7 m), with a minimum 530 feet (161.5 m) bottom width, to accommodate larger ships. The last section of the Baytown Tunnel was removed from the Houston Ship Channel on September 14, 1999, with removal of the tunnel being the responsibility of the Texas Department of Transportation.[4]

Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Fred Hartman Bridge at Structurae
  2. 2.0 2.1 "Baytown Bridge" (photo), Flickr, December 2007.
  3. "Baytown Bridge (HWY-146)" (angled photo), Rob Benz, 2006, webpage: Mappic-BBridge.
  4. 4.0 4.1 "Welcome to the Houston-Galveston Navigation Channel Project Online Resource Center" (description), USACE, December 2005, webpage: USACE-HGNC.

External links



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