The Florida Avenue Bridge is a

vertical lift bridge A vertical-lift bridge or just lift bridge is a type of movable bridge in which a span rises vertically while remaining parallel with the deck. The vertical lift offers several benefits over other movable bridges such as the bascule and sw ...

spanning the

Industrial Canal The Industrial Canal is a 5.5 mile (9 km) waterway in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. The waterway's proper name, as used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and on NOAA nautical charts, is Inner Harbor Navigation Canal ( IHNC). ...

New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

. The bridge has one

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

track, two vehicle lanes and two sidewalks. A parallel high-elevation four-lane roadway bridge is planned.

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 1920s in order to provide railroad access across the Inner Harbor-Navigational Canal, locally referred to as the

. 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, Almonaster and Seabrook remain dedicated to rail service only. 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 The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mu ...

under a Truman-Hobbs appropriation.

The current bridge

The new bridge has a horizontal clearance of 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. positio

Most of the marine usage of the Florida Avenue site consists of

towboat A pusher, pusher craft, pusher boat, pusher tug, or towboat, is a boat designed for pushing barges or car floats. In the United States, the industries that use these vessels refer to them as towboats. These vessels are characterized by a squar ...

and

barge Barge nowadays generally refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but nowadays most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels ...

traffic transiting from 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 fl ...

, through the Corps of Engineer's Inner Harbor-Navigational CanalLock, then east following the

Gulf Intracoastal Waterway The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway is the portion of the Intracoastal Waterway located along the Gulf Coast of the United States. It is a navigable inland waterway running approximately from Carrabelle, Florida, to Brownsville, Texas. The waterwa ...

. The lift bridge is capable of sufficient vertical clearance for ship traffic. The bridge has undergone repairs due to Hurricane Katrina storm surge in 2005. It sustained flooding once again due to Hurricane Gustav in 2008. Operations of the Port of New Orleans' four bridges across the Inner Harbor-Navigational Canal, including special alerts, can be found at www.portno.com at the link for citizen resources at the link for bridges.

Plans for a newer bridge

A parallel, four-lane, vehicular only, is planned to be built just south of (toward the Mississippi River from) the Port of New Orleans' existing lift bridge by the Louisiana State Department of Transportation and Development. Design is underway, but due to funding issues, the construction has been placed on hold by the State of Louisian

References

External links

* http://www.portno.com/pno_pages/citizen_bridge_closures.asp
American Bridge Company: Florida Avenue Bridge

Louisiana TIMED Program: Florida Avenue Bridge

* {{Crossings navbox , structure = Crossings , place =

Mississippi River Gulf Outlet Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Missis ...

, bridge = Florida Avenue Bridge , bridge signs = , upstream text = West , upstream = Claiborne Avenue Bridge , upstream signs = , downstream text = East , downstream = Green Bridge
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Almonaster Avenue Bridge The Almonaster Avenue Bridge is a bascule bridge in New Orleans, Louisiana. The bridge has two vehicular lanes of Almonaster Avenue and two railroad tracks over the Industrial Canal. The bridge is named after Almonaster Avenue on which it ...

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) , downstream signs = Bridges in New Orleans Vertical lift bridges in Louisiana Intracoastal Waterway Bridges completed in 2005 Road-rail bridges in the United States Road bridges in Louisiana Railroad bridges in Louisiana Steel bridges in the United States 2005 establishments in Louisiana