During a visit to Charleston, West Virginia, I took a walking tour of two notable bridges.
The South Side Bridge is one of the most recognizable structures over the Kanawha River. It connects Dickenson Street between downtown and the South Side neighborhoods.
The original South Side Bridge, completed in 1891, was the city’s first fixed crossing over the Kanawha. Built by the South Side Bridge Company, it featured a Pennsylvania through truss main span and Parker through truss approach spans. It operated as a tolled structure until 1914, when the county acquired it.
By the 1930s, the South Side Bridge required replacement due to overuse. The federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) contributed approximately $312,000 towards this effort, with $163,000 allocated for steel and the remainder for labor. Charleston funded its share of the costs from a $330,000 bridge bond issue passed in December 1935. Preliminary work began in January 1936, and a construction contract for the new South Side Bridge was awarded that March to the Wisconsin Bridge & Iron Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for $223,541.
On October 26, after ceremonies held on the deck of the government towboat Iroquois, the main span of the old South Side Bridge was dropped into the river. The new South Side Bridge cost $600,000 to complete and opened to traffic in April 1937.
Nearby is the Lee Street Bridge, which carries Lee Street and US Route 60 over the Elk River. It consists of a steel through-arch main span and two girder approach spans. The federal Public Works Administration (PWA) contributed funds for constructing the Lee Street Bridge, which the Mt. Vernon Bridge Company built in 1938-39.
On my way home, I quickly stopped for some aerial shots of the Dunbar-South Charleston Interstate Bridges, which carry Interstate 64 over the Kanawha River, Wilson Island, three roads, and railroad tracks between Dunbar and South Charleston. The original crossing at Wilson Island was constructed between 1968 and 1974, with the deck plate girder structure costing $19 million to build. It carried four lanes of interstate traffic.
By the early 21st century, the Kanawha River crossing was increasingly burdened with heavy truck and commuter traffic. Preliminary design studies evaluated several alternatives to increase the river crossing’s capacity, including widening the existing bridge, complete bridge replacement, and constructing a new eastbound bridge. The chosen alternative was to construct a new eastbound structure on an improved alignment with three travel lanes and one auxiliary lane. The existing bridge would be modified to maintain four lanes for westbound traffic.
Because of cost and aesthetics, a segmental concrete box girder was selected for the new bridge. The new bridge was constructed as a balanced cantilever concrete box girder using form travelers with 175 cast-in-place segments. It included eight piers, totaling 2,950 feet in length, with a 760-foot main span—the longest concrete box girder span in the nation—along with 460-foot and 540-foot side spans and five additional approach spans. The main span length was determined to keep the main piers outside the river’s main channel to avoid interfering with barge traffic. This was the first long-span, segmental box girder structure in the state built using the balanced cantilever method.
The final segment was cast during a ceremony on June 17, 2009. The new bridge was completed at a cost of $93.6 million, and after its completion, the 1974 span was rehabilitated.
