1934+1996 US-1 and Brightline/Florida East Coast Bridges over St. Lucie River in Stuart, FL

1934 US-1: (Archived Bridge Hunter; Bridge Hunter; no Historic Bridges; Satellite) Dixie Highway

1996 US-1: (Archived Bridge Hunter; Bridge Hunter; Satellite) Roosevelt Bridge

FEC: (Archived Bridge Hunter; Bridge Hunter; no Historic Bridges; Satellite)

A view of the railroad and Dixie Highway Bridges from the Roosevelt Bridge. 

Street View, Jul 2017

I noticed in a satellite image that the bridge was built over a lot of water. I hope that the water is shallow here and that the bedrock is close to the surface to reduce the cost of all of those piers. 

There is limestone bedrock near the surface in a lot of places in Florida.

It is 4,487' (1.4km) long with a span length of 260' (79m). [BridgeHunter_1996]

Scott Johnson (sajflorida) Flickr, License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC)

This shows that there are a couple of curves in the bridge.

Street View, May 2024

The 1996 Roosevelt Bridge is a concrete segmental box girder bridge. IT STARTED FALLING APART IN LESS THAN 25 YEARS! [ArchivedBridgeHunter_1996]

In June 2020, both the northbound and southbound bridges were shut down because cracks were found in the southernmost span of the southbound bridge. They also closed the 1934 Dixie Highway bridge because it passes under the cracked span. In fact, there was not just cracks, there was falling concrete! The U.S. Coast Guard overracted and declared the bridge is "at risk of an imminent collapse." The Coast Guard stopped all commercial traffic under the other end of the bridge.  [RoadsBridges]

It is interesting that the story as to how the crack was found and reported changed. Originally, it was by a construction crew on another road project. But later FDOT claimed that it was found by a routine biannual inspection.

wptv
Within hours of the Coast Guard alert, the mayor of Stuart, FL, said "FDOT engineers have not found any evidence that the bridge is at immediate risk of collapsing." "Upon inspection, engineers with FDOT found that rust in the steel cables had been exposed when the concrete fell. Further inspection revealed an area of concern on the northbound side of the bridge as well." Tolls were waved on the Florida Turnpike between Port St. Lucie and Stuart to help detour traffic around the closed bridges.

The railroad bridge is obviously a trunnion bridge because we can see the trunnion. I think the old road bridge is also a trunnion bridge.

Street View, May 2024

The railroad drawbridge was upgraded in 2023 to support better reliability and faster speeds for passenger trains.

5:20 video @ 0:37

Note that traffic is stopped. The road bridge started going up in this segment of the video.

@ 4:04

This is the post that led me down the rabbit hole of St. Lucie River Bridges. This train is one of those faster passenger trains that caused the upgrade of the railroad bridge.

Steven J. Brown posted
Brightline Siemens SCB-40 121 (built 2023) crossing the St Lucie River at Stuart, Florida - February 19, 2026. The train wears a wrap celebrating the 250-year anniversary of the USA.

1848+1909 Bridges over Illinois River at Peoria, IL, Collapsed

(Satellite, the 1909 bridge was replaced by the 1913 Franklin Street Bridge.)

Since the 1909 bridge lasted for just a few weeks, it doesn't show up on any maps that I could find.

peorian
The bridge was dedicated on Apr 11, 1909. "The old 1848 wooden bridge, nicknamed “Old Tooth Picks” for its dilapidated and frightening condition, had two sections that had been swept away in a flood. A new bridge was a necessity."

peorian
Construction
"The new bridge was built with five concrete-and-steel arches with one rolling lift span to allow boat traffic to pass. The total length was 1,124 feet [343m]. The roadway was 25 feet [7.6m] in width with two 5-foot-wide sidewalks on either side. The five arches supported six spans of 125 feet [38m] with longitudinal arch ribs spaced with transverse bars tightly woven in them."

peorian
A few weeks after its dedication, it collapsed at 5:50am on May 1, 1909.
"At the time of the accident, there was no traffic on the bridge and luckily no casualties."

peorian
"Government engineers reported on the accident and speculated why the bridge fell into the river. They deduced that the catastrophe was a culmination of a long series of mishaps and blunders. They concluded that as early as 1908, engineers noticed that piers three and four where not placed on sound bedrock and had settled into the river floor by 10 inches in a couple months. Excavations to remedy the settling caused cracks to appear in the walls of the spans. As the city was side-excavating to support the cracking walls, the Illinois River began flooding and stopped the work. With the foundations deeply undermined, the force of the river current was too much for the lateral support system, a recipe for disaster."

Peoria has a long history of booze production.

Judy Goby Oxtoby posted

Peoria - c 1915 - Gipps Brewery—remains of concrete bridge failure.

Source: personal PC collection

Larry Miller III posted seven images with the comment:

By request, here is the sequence of bridges over the Illinois River between Peoria and East Peoria built in approximately the same location.

The second bridge is the Bridge of Sighs.

The wood wagon bridge had aged terribly and the City of Peoria paid $200,000 to construct a concrete bridge. Unfortunately, the builders placed the piers on river silt instead of bedrock and did not reinforce the concrete structure beyond the lift span. It only lasted for about a week before collapsing into the river. A great embarrassment to Peoria. 

The lift span and its piers remained on the Peoria side and the rest had to be removed from the river.

Joline Gorman Bruder: I believe that is the reason the Franklin St Bridge had a curve in it because they couldn’t build it straight across due to the silt. At least that’s what my grandparents used to say.

Steve Drassler: The old Franklin Street Bridge (near where Bob Michel bridge is now) was supposedly the most tricky spot for Illinois River towboats to navigate barge tows through. The barge tow had to be nuzzled up parallel to the Peoria riverbank side before proceeding. It was always fun to watch them perform this dance while seated at the Steak n Shake across the river in EP.

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This location was the first vehicular bridges at Peoria. Only roads and tracks were on the flood plain back then. This shows the 1848 wood bridge.

1905/05 Peoria Quad @ 62,500

The concrete bridge was replaced by the 1913 Franklin Street Bridge.

Erie Canal Oneida Feeder and Oneida Canals

Old Feeder Joins Erie: (Satellite) 

New Feeder Joins Erie: (Satellite) The Oneida creek Aqueduct is just a little east of here.

Marker: (Satellite)

Erie Canal Overview

1895/95 Oneida Quad @ 62,000

Yvonne Wall posted 21 images with the comment: "Oneida Feeder Canal, Saturday and then I add in my collections."

[See hmdb for more information on this marker. Specifically, the location of the marker is 43°05'33.1"N 75°39'01.0"W.]

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Images 2-8 are closeups of the above image.

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The devil is in the details. I have some bones to pick with the historical marker. 

First of all, the text says "to a dock north of Elm Street, which I agree with." That is, the canal was not down by the marker's location, which is a few blocks south of Elm Street.

Second of all, the feeder canal would have ended at the Erie Canal a little west of the Oneida Creek Aqueduct at Durhamville, NY. The short canal from the Erie Canal to Oneida would be a branch canal to deliver cargo to downtown Oneida. Technically, it is the Oneida Canal. 

Third of all, I think the houses with bridges were on the west side of Main Street, not the east side. In this closeup of the topo map, we see a gap between the houses on the west side of Main Street, but there is no gap on the east side. Also, note that there are houses on the south side of Elm Street where the canal would have been if it went south to the historical marker area.

Digitally Zoomed.

I repeat Yvonne's last photo because it states that it is looking "up state." Every usage I've seen of "up state" in New York means we are looking North. If we are looking North, then the houses are west of Main Street.

Image 21

Fourth of all, I don't think any of the images with a curve in the canal are of the Oneida Feeder Canal nor the Oneida Canal. For example, this image claims to be at Main and Elizabeth Streets. But those two streets don't intersect. And Elizabeth Street is south of Elm Street, which is where I think the canal ended.

Image 13

Here is a closeup of the topo map that includes Elizabeth Street.

Digitally Zoomed

To summarize, blue is the original Oneida Feeder Canal, Red is the newer Oneida Feeder Canal and yellow is the Oneida Canal.

Satellite plus Paint

Some of the second Oneida Feeder Canal has yet to be filled in. And much of the path back to the lake can be traced through the trees.

Satellite

Here is another wet part.

Satellite