Hastings Bridge

[Mdcastle]

Hastings Bridge

Spinning this off into it's own thread.

Originally posted Mar 12, 2012


The doomed bridge in the background, with it's replacement in the foreground. The old Hastings bridge opened in 1951 and is historic, but is structurally deficient and functionally obsolete, it's only two lanes wide but carries 30,000 vehicles a day. The old bridge is to be another casualty of the I-35W bridge collapse. In the political fallout the legislature fired the transportation comissioner who was Pawlenty's stooge and opposed a gasoline tax increase, passed the increase over Pawlenty's veto, and directed the money be used to rehabilitate or replace bridges. Part of the stipulation was if a fracture-critical bridge needed major rehabilitation, it needed to either be replaced or rehabilitated to a redundant design. An early concept was to build a two lane tied-arch bridge next to the old one, as was done next to the "Big Blue Bridge", but the option was scrapped when investigation revealed that to rehabiliate the old bridge to a redundant design would destroy the historic character, as well as taking twice as long to construct. Mn/DOT offered the bridge to local agencies for preservation as a pedestrian bridge, but as with the bridge's predecessor the Spiral Bridge their were no takers.

The three options for replacement were a girder bridge, a tied arch bridge, and a cable-stayed bridge. Most residents wanted a "look at me" bridge (although a minority actually favored a nondescript girder bridge as it would improve drivers view of downtown and the river). There wasn't a strong cost difference or local consensus between a tied-arch bridge and a cable stayed bridge, so Mn/DOT allowed contracters to bid on either design, and a tied-arch bridge won the low bid.



Two more views of the bridge.


The JB Hudson plant, they've manufactured agricultural sprinklers here since the early 1900s. The new bridge took out their warehouse. Although there would have been enough space to rebuild in on-site, instead they opted to decamp and move to a vacant building in the industrial park on the southeast side of town. The city of Hastings in investigating converting the old building into into a hotel.



A contractor staging area a short distance upriver. The arches will be built on land here, then transfered to barges and floated to the new bridge. You can see the top of the old bridge from here, but I didn't use that angle since it was facing into the sun. In the first picture the cliffs are on the other side of the river a lot farther than they look; I was using my telephoto range here. I'm not sure exactly what all the stuff is for lying around, but there's four upright poles that appear to be about the correct distance from each other to be for resting the ends of the arches on.

[Mdcastle]

Aug 12, 2012


The new bridge and the old bridge. Hastings is still lamenting the loss of the Spiral Bridge that has been gone over 50 years. But when the present bridge was built there was absolutely zero interest in the city or anyone else stepping into save it. Just like now there's absolutely zero interest in saving the present bridge; I wonder if in a few years people will start lamenting the loss of it. I realize it can't stay as a road bridge under state law an it would need real money to fix it, but I question our priorities when they could have built a generic girder bridge and spent the leftover money on it, or why we're spending over a million dollars to move what's basically a stone garage in Oak Park Heights that most people have never heard of, much less care about.


Closer in view of the north pier.


I realize the composition is lousy from a photographic point of view, but this shows the relative location of the bridge and the arch.




The arch rises. Just about everyone driving by slowed down to look at it. The red color is presumably the final color, it looks like they're using a grey primer and then the red. The visualization shows more a dull red / terra-cotta, a color that's associated with the town because of the old brick buildings, other color options were grey or a deep blue. Maybe they expect the color to fade somewhat or maybe the visualizations are off.


The Flint Hills Nature Center is being used as a staging area. I found it amusing the nature center sign with a bunch of construction trailers immediately behind it. The riverfront path is detoured around the area. Those are 250 watt HPS lumiaires so it's certainly lit well at night.




Three views from the north. This was as close as I could get without trespassing.

[Mdcastle]

Posted Jan 6, 2012

September: the bridge is moved onto barges.



The lifting was going to be when I was in Virginia and North Carolina, but they kept postponing it until I was able to be back to attend. It was a beautiful fall day and the town was out to see it.



The old bridge was closed to prevent accidents from gawkers




For various reasons I wasn't able to get back out there until yesterday. They're going to need to repaint the mural.

[agentsteel53]

They're going to need to repaint the mural.

I think they should leave it.  the old bridge isn't substandard visually.

[Mdcastle]

Yesterday southbound traffic was switched to the new bridge, and today northbound traffic was. They had a ceremony where the mayor spoke, they had a bagpiper, and the public was allowed to walk the old bridge. I was one of the last 10 members of the public ever to be on it.


IMG_2753 by North Star Highways, on Flickr
The temporary configuration. Conditions were not optimal to get good pictures but I tried to do the best I could.


IMG_2749 by North Star Highways, on Flickr
Steel and Sky


IMG_2757 by North Star Highways, on Flickr
Telephoto view down the main street.

Skip to today


IMG_2779 by North Star Highways, on Flickr
The man in the suit is the mayor.


IMG_2786 by North Star Highways, on Flickr


IMG_2800 by North Star Highways, on Flickr


IMG_2801 by North Star Highways, on Flickr


IMG_2815 by North Star Highways, on Flickr


IMG_2806 by North Star Highways, on Flickr


IMG_2827 by North Star Highways, on Flickr
The cops getting everyone off one last time. More photos on Flickr.

[NE2]

US Bike Route 45 has just recently been designated over the bridge.

[froggie]

One branch of it, anyway.  I believe there's an ALT USBR 45 that was designated going west from Hastings.  There's certainly an alternate routing of the MRT that does such.

[NE2]

One branch of it, anyway.  I believe there's an ALT USBR 45 that was designated going west from Hastings.  There's certainly an alternate routing of the MRT that does such.

Nope - USBR 45 has only one AASHTO-approved alignment between Hastings and Newport (but 45A begins north of the Hastings Bridge and goes to Wisconsin).