The Wabasha Street Bridge is a

segmental bridge A segmental bridge is a bridge built in short sections (called segments), i.e., one piece at a time, as opposed to traditional methods that build a bridge in very large sections. The bridge is made of concrete that is either cast-in-place (constru ...

that spans the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

in downtown

Saint Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County, Minnesota, Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississip ...

, United States. It was named Wabasha Street Freedom Bridge in 2002, to commemorate the first anniversary of the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

. It actually consists of two separate bridges, one for northbound and one for southbound traffic. The use of a concrete segmental box girder bridge provided a construction advantage because no falsework needed to be built beneath the bridge. The bridge opened to traffic in 1998; some decorative elements were not completed until late 2001. It was built by Lunda Construction Company and was designed by Toltz, King, Duvall, Anderson & Associates, Inc. The new bridge replaced an earlier structure that was built in 1889. The new bridge was built with pedestrians in mind. It features sidewalks, six overlooks at the pier locations, and a stairway down to Raspberry Island. The color scheme of the bridge was also planned to reflect the architectural heritage of Saint Paul, with a soft buff color (the color of

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

) to reflect the colors used in many downtown Saint Paul buildings. The color of

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based ceramic glaze, unglazed or glazed ceramic where the pottery firing, fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, a ...

roofs in the city was used to select the color of the railings, and the green patina of the Saint Paul Cathedral is echoed in the ornamental color of the overlooks. The new bridge has won several awards, including the

Federal Highway Administration The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is a division of the United States Department of Transportation that specializes in highway transportation. The agency's major activities are grouped into two programs, the Federal-aid Highway Program a ...

1998 Excellence in Highway Design Award and the Minnesota Society of Professional Engineers 2001 Seven Wonders of Engineering in Minnesota award. The pedestrian walkways are on the outside of the bridge. There is a gap of between the two bridge decks, between the southbound bridge and the northbound bridge. In July 2011, a man jumped over the inner railing, on the side not designated for pedestrians, thinking a landing was on the other side. Instead, he fell and landed on Raspberry Island underneath the bridge. He survived the fall but was critically injured. To mark the

Minnesota Senate The Minnesota Senate is the upper house of the Legislature of the U.S. state of Minnesota. At 67 members, half as many as the Minnesota House of Representatives, it is the largest upper house of any U.S. state legislature. Floor sessions are hel ...

's vote to allow same sex marriage in Minnesota, mayor Chris Coleman issued a proclamation on May 13, 2013, temporarily renaming the bridge "Wabasha Street Freedom to Marry Bridge" and ordered dozens of

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s to be flown on the bridge.

1886 Bridge

Completed in 1890, the second bridge was an iron cantilever deck-truss bridge, which was an advanced engineering feat at the time. That bridge was listed in the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1989. Unfortunately, that bridge had increasing problems with repair and maintenance because of its age, and after city engineers assessed the condition of the old bridge, the decision was made to replace the bridge.

1859 Bridge

The first Wabasha Street Bridge was completed in 1859 and was known as the "Saint Paul Bridge". It was a toll bridge until 1874 when West Saint Paul was annexed into Saint Paul.

References

External links

* * * * * * of previous bridge {{Crossings navbox , structure = Crossings , place =

, bridge = Wabasha Street Bridge , bridge signs = , upstream = Smith Avenue High Bridge , upstream signs = , downstream = St. Paul Union Pacific Vertical-lift Rail Bridge , downstream signs = Bridges completed in 1889 Bridges completed in 1998 Bridges in Saint Paul, Minnesota Bridges over the Mississippi River Road bridges in Minnesota Concrete bridges in the United States Box girder bridges in the United States Cantilever bridges in the United States Historic American Engineering Record in Minnesota

1886 Bridge

1859 Bridge

See also

References

External links