The length of the main span is 810'. The 2017 daily traffic count was 75,000. [BridgeHunter] The main span is cantilevered, but the additional spans on the east side are continuous trusses. [HistoricBridges]
"The bridge was dedicated to Judge John E. Mathews, a Florida state legislator and Chief Justice of the 1955 Supreme Court, who had urged building on the site since the early 1930s and helped gather funding for construction." The 2007 rehabilitation replaced the grid deck with a solid deck. [HistoricInventory] But that rehabilitation was just one of several. In 2011 a more expensive project made structural repairs and repainted the bridge. [TheJaxsonMag-3]
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| Street View |
Many cities are built around a river such as Chicago and Cleveland, but seldom is the river as wide and deep as the St. Johns River.
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| Boston Public Library Flickr via BridgeHunter, License: Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) Aerial view of the new Arlington Bridge, Jacksonville, Florida [It carries the Arlington Expressway over the St. Johns River.] |
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| Bridges Then and Now posted Jacksonville, Florida's, Mathews Bridge nearing completion, c. late 1952/early 1953. (Robert Fisher-Florida Times Union) Edward Ringwald: Basically the same cantilever through truss design as the old Sunshine Skyway, only the Mathews Bridge has four lanes compare to the old Sunshine Skyway’s two lanes. The Mathews Bridge also had a steel grid deck similar to the old Sunshine Skyway, but the steel grid deck on the Mathews Bridge was replaced by an exothermic deck for motorist safety reasons. Timothy Noles: Edward Ringwald Our Firm , Hardesty &Hanover replaced the open grating deck in 2007 and designed the repair of the truss channel span after it was hit by a navy transport ship in 2013. |
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| State Archives of Florida via TheJaxsonMag Bridges Now and Then posted The Mathews Bridge under construction, Jacksonville, Florida. Built between 1951 and 1953, it was dedicated to Judge Mathews who had advocated building the bridge since the early 1930s. (State Archives of Florida) |
The truss design represents a transition between the old and new. It does not have the old-fashioned V-lacing, but it does still have rivets. Because of the lack of shoulders, it joins the Main Street and Hart Bridges as Jacksonville's three functionally obsolete bridges.
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| Street View |
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| TheCoastal "Clearance below the bridge is measured at roughly 146 feet." |
I discovered this classic cantilevered bridge in the right background while I was checking out the truss member design of the Hart Bridge.
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| Dennis DeBruler |
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| BizJournals-repair Oct 1, 2013: $2.5 million Mathews Bridge repair should be done by Oct. 30 [The repair ending up costing $4m. [TheJaxsonMag-3] FDOT had listed the bridge as 6' taller than its current listing of 146' of clearance. [wikiwand]] |
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| BizJournals-whoops "The Military Sealift Command USNS 1st Lt. Harry Martin docked at the North Florida Shipyards. The ship was under tow when its vehicle ramp struck the Mathews Bridge." |
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