1919, 1937+2005 Florida Avenue Bridges over the Industrial Canal in New Orleans, LA

1919: (Bridge Hunter)

2005: (Bridge Hunter; Satellite)

The formal name for the Industrial Canal is the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal (IH-NC).

"The [1919] bridge was one of four bascule bridges built by the Port of New Orleans to cross the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal (IH-NC). In 1992, the U.S. Coast Guard declared the Florida Avenue Bridge an unreasonable obstruction to marine traffic. The new Florida Avenue lift bridge was completed in 2005 and the old bascule bridge was removed. The other three bascule bridges remain in service today (Seabrook, Almonaster Avenue and St. Claude Avenue)." A roadway was added in 1937. [BridgeHunter-1919]

The railroad was the Southern, and it is now the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad.

Street View

If they built a short embankment under Florida Avenue to keep it elevated until it got to the flood wall and then lowered the grade of the road down to the Lower Ninth Ward, then the bridge would have been usable during flood events. It would have also saved them the cost of a flood gate.

But during really high flood events, it looks like the railroad is a hole in the wall.

Street View

Jonathan Konopka posted
This is the Florida Avenue Bridge in New Orleans, LA. It is a vertical lift bridge that was built in 2005 and carries Florida Avenue and one railroad track across the Industrial Canal.

USGS via Wikimedia via BridgeHunter-1919
[So the counterweight was on the west side.]

The WPA added the roadway in 1937.

Photo via nutrias, Jan 8, 1937

It appears that the drainage canal in the above photo now feeds a pumping station because a flood wall has been added.

Satellite

I noticed these three pipes when I was looking for a street view of the bridge.

Street View

I guess the pipes penetrate the flood wall so that they don't interfere with the pilings underneath the wall.

Satellite

The drainage canal used to go under the Industrial Canal.

Photo via nutrias, Apr 28, 1938

It looks like the lift bridge was built just south of the Strauss bridge since the counterweight was on the west side of the Strauss bridge.

Modjeski
The navigation channel was widened from 90' to 300'. The main span is 342' with a vertical clearance of 156'.

Modjeski

Blue counterweights blend in with the blue sky remarkably well. It took me a while to find them. They are just above the lift span in this partially open view.

Modjeski

The new bridge broke just 15 years later.

Facebook, June 10, 2020
"The Florida Ave. Bridge is closed to vehicular traffic until further notice due to a control system malfunction. The bridge will remain raised and open to marine traffic, and will be lowered only for passage of trains until the control system is repaired."

Less than a decade after the new bridge was finished, LaDOT was planning to build a new bridge next to it. These are pages 3 and 4 of 2013 alternatives via projects.

1

2

They held public meetings in 2016 to present the plans. LaDOT evidently paid attention to the negative feedback [NOLA] because I have not found anything newer than 2017 concerning this project.