(
Bridge Hunter;
John A. Weeks III;
HAER;
Satellite)
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John Weeks
The bridge was opened June 26, 2003.
Navigation span: 1,250'
Total Length: 7,780'
Tower Height: 486'
Clearance: 203'
"The Sidney Lanier Bridge is located at the entrance to the harbor at Brunswick, Georgia. It replaces an earlier lift bridge. Given that 20 large ships enter or exit the harbor each day, the lift bridge was often closed for many hours each day. In shrimping season, the bridge would be raised many more times. As a result, traffic across the old bridge was often backed up. Another key reason for building a new bridge is that many modern ocean going ships are larger than what the old lift bridge would allow....The new Lanier Bridge has the appearance of the classic bridge to nowhere. It sits on a small loop of road only a few miles from I-95. In fact, you can see the bridge from I-95. There are several alternate routes, and plenty of exits on I-95, so the bridge only saves a mile or two of travel. I was surprised at how high the traffic count was compared with the few cars that I saw on the bridge. In comparison to other major Cable Stayed bridges, the 11,500 traffic count is relatively small. Then again, the bridge is still very new, so time will tell."
[BridgeHunter has a 2011 traffic count of 11,950 per day.] |
Two photos of the upriver side by John Weeks.
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| 1 |
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| 2 |
I don't know why HAER photos were taken near the end of the construction of the new bridge because they concentrate on the new bridge instead of the old lift bridge. And the record does not include a "Significance" paragraph. Here are some of the photos that include the lift bridge.
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HAER GA-147-3
3. View of roadway looking north with old bridge to left on new bridge deck. - Sidney Lanier Bridge, Spanning Brunswick River, Brunswick, Glynn County, GA |
The lift span was 250' wide and provided just 139' of clearance. [
RoadTraffic-Technology]
When an allision happened between a ship and the old lift bridge on Nov 7, 1972, the bridge was 16 years old. So the lift bridge was built in 1956. Ten people died because the ship tore out three 150' spans on which traffic was stopped since the movable span was open for the ship. I-95 was still being built so the only detour option during the six-month repair was GA-303. The crew said the cause was a steering failure. But the NTSB reports that it was human error: "The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the collision of the SS African Neptune with the Sidney Lanier Bridge was (1) the failure of the helmsman to apply the correct rudder response to two helm orders; (2) the failure of the third mate, master, and pilot to discover the first error; and (3) the delay by the third mate, master, and pilot in detecting the second." In 1987 another allision happened when a ship hit the draw span. Fortunately, there were no causalities and I-95 was available during this 5-month repair. [
TheBrunswickNews, paycount 3]
The above newspaper article confirms that this fishing pier is a remnant of the 1956 bridge.
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BrunswickGA
"Georgia’s tallest cable-stayed suspension bridge, which provides easy access to the Golden Isles from Interstate 95 (Exit 29). This beautiful structure is 7,780 feet long and 486 feet tall. It contains 95,283 cubic yards of concrete and 14,810,095 pounds of reinforcing steel. It was named for Georgian poet Sidney Lanier who wrote the poem Marshes of Glynn, about the beautiful marshes that surround the area."
[The left photo is by Rod Gimenez.] |
Comparison with Arthur Ravenel, Jr. Bridge and the Talmadge Memorial Bridge
The proximity and rivalry between Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah and Brunswick often lead to comparisons between the
Arthur Ravenel, Jr. Bridge, the
Talmadge Memorial Bridge, and the Sidney Lanier Bridge. Completed in 2005, the clearance under the Arthur Ravenel, Jr., Bridge is actually only one foot taller than that of both the Talmadge Memorial Bridge and the Sidney Lanier Bridge. Unlike the Talmadge Memorial Bridge and the Sidney Lanier Bridge, however, the Ravenel Bridge has eight travel lanes; the Talmadge and the Sidney both have just four lanes. The Ravenel also features a dedicated bike/pedestrian lane.
As for the span of the three bridges, the Arthur Ravenel, Jr. Bridge is 1,546 feet (471 m). The Talmadge Memorial Bridge is 1,100 feet (340 m). The Sidney Lanier Bridge is 1,250 feet (380 m).
As for the total length of the three bridges, The Arthur Ravenel, Jr. Bridge is 13,200 feet (4,000 m). The Talmadge Memorial Bridge is 1.9 miles (3.1 km). The Sidney Lanier Bridge is 7,779 feet (2,371 m).
The deck for this bridge was evidently cast in place. Normally the deck of cable-stayed bridges are built by lifting precast segments up from barges.
Roadtraffic-technology talks about two "form travellers." I presume that the form travellers are the blue things shown at the ends of the deck that is still being constructed.
I've seen the figure of 20 ships a day in a couple of sources. So I zoomed out on the satellite map to see what kind of ship docks I could find along the rivers. There is a port on the south side of the river and a paper company further upstream.
Zooming into the port, I saw a lot of big parking lots. That means most of the ships are importing vehicles. (Symrise caught my eye. I don't think they use any shipping because they make cosmetics.) According to a 1955 topo map, this port was built since then. By 1979, one can see the Golden Isles Terminal Railroad had been built to this area, but not much else. On a 1993 topo the general cargo terminal shows up. So all of the auto import stuff has been built since then.
Sure enough, of the three docks, two of them were occupied by
RORO ships.
The middle dock could handle bulk cargo. It looks like it could handle grain and...
The above photo appears to be flipped so here is an unflipped version.
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| Unflipped |
Did the crane get switched from green to red or vice-versa?
Some of the satellite images I came across while researching the port showed the facilities of the general cargo terminal had been torn down. So I fired up Google Earth to confirm that the general cargo terminal was torn down recently.
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| Google Earth, Jan 2019 |
I think this photo shows that the middle dock is now also a RORO dock.
By Sep 2018, most of the bulk material handling equipment had been removed and a RORO ship is using the middle dock.
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| Google Earth, Sep 2018 |
The bulk cargo equipment was intact in Oct 2017, but the usage of the dock had already switched to RORO.
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| Google Earth, Oct 2017 |
The bridge is named after a poet, not a pork-barrel politician. But I noticed even before I read John Weeks comments that the bridge seems to be a monument to wasted taxpayer's money. Looking at Bridge Hunter, I could not find a single photo that had more than a handful of cars on it. I-80 in Joliet would probably have more vehicles than that in a shorter distance at 3:00am. And it is not unusual for most of those vehicles to be 18-wheelers.
After zooming in to the base of the tower, I found four vehiclesfour in this view.
And I found four in this view also. But still no 18-wheelers.
And while I was street viewing, I got one of the bridge itself.
Actually, even I-95 is rather empty compared to what I'm used to seeing on Interstates. I do see one 18-wheeler. Georgia gets three lanes while I-65 in northwest Indiana is still just two lanes with traffic almost always so dense that you can't choose your own speed. I now use US-52 from I-57 when I go from the Downers Grove to Indianapolis. It is probably slower, but there is a lot less road rage. I hate being forced to drive under 60mph in the left lane.
This is the post that motivated these notes.
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| One of two photos posted by Ted Gregory |
The lighting on the bridge is minimal to reduce the disorientation of sea turtle hatchlings as they migrate back to sea from their nests on the beaches. [
n-georgia]
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