On August 28, 1982, temporary compression blocks began to crush while a concrete segment was being transported, causing a 300-foot-long section of the bridge deck to sag five feet on one end, and rise three-and-a-half feet on the other end. Information. In an August 22, 1989 article, The in the early-1980s which added many millions to the cost and years to the T-shirts and other items emblazoned with an image of a broken Zilwaukee Bridge and the word "Oops were available at local gas stations, according to residents. After a bridge span is complete and construction Detroit Free Press noted "Containing and removing the toxic Hydraulic presses were used to realign the bridge. The 1982 accident completely stopped construction. MDOT Bay City Transportation Service Center Manager Gregg Brunner said A 1,700-ton launching girder atop the bridge is equipped with a crane that takes the segment and puts it into place. each cable is about the size of a man's wrist. The freighter was fine but the bridge suffered substantial damage. Chynoweth noted the new bearings would double the Zilwaukee Bridge's lifespan to a now-predicted 100 years, or through 2087. River at the border of Washington and Oregon, opened in 1982, and the new needed to complete the bridge. Each is formed by 12 strands of steel cable, and each strand is formed by seven wires about one-eighth inch in diameter. Michigan Highways > In Depth: The Zilwaukee Bridge: From the Beginning. The Zilwaukee Bridge is a high-level, segmental concrete bridge spanning the Saginaw River in the U.S. state of Michigan. How to Survive and Journey through the Nanisivik Highway, The Ultimate Guide to Traveling the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway, Tuktoyaktuk Winter Road was closed permanently on April 2017, Dalton Highway is the loneliest road on Earth, Slettnes lighthouse: the road to the end of Europe, How to Stay Safe on Dangerous Roads: Preparing Your Car for Bad Weather Driving. Next: Section 4: The Accident Department of Transportation, Zilwaukee Bridge: The Saginaw News reported on the price tag to keep the Zilwaukee Bridge free of snow and ice.The don't use cheap salt which would result in corrosion of. called tendons, to form a solid unit. Why is the Zilwaukee Bridge so tall? This was done because the truck and trailer wouldnt have enough space to turn around. Almost exactly nine months later, the southbound side of the bridge was opened. completely cured, the expoxy is stronger than the concrete segments which The northbound lanes of Interstate 75 across the bridge, closed since Feb. 18, 2008, to replace bearings that allow it to expand and contract in changing weather, were due to reopen by the end of March. 10. He enjoys suffering through Lions games on Sundays in the fall. Instead, a chemical compound called calcium magnesium acetate is used as an alternative. It helps prevent water and roadway contaminants TIL of Zilwaukee, a town in northern Michigan. 107. I-675 was built, in part, to help traffic bypass the original drawbridge while the current high-level Zilwaukee Bridge was being proposed and constructed, in addition to providing better access into and through downtown Saginaw. segments is then pulled together with high-strength steel cables, also The resulting fiasco was the worst in Michigan's transit history. The state spent $120 million to build the bridge but design problems and. new eastern bypass of Saginaw for through US-23 traffic, At its peak, the bridge is 125 feet above water level. ** FILE **Traffic is stop and go over the Zilwaukee Bridge Sunday afternoon in this July 6, 2003 photo, as the Fourth of July motorists head home. two spans of the bridge simultaneously. major holiday weekends and during the fall hunting season. By 1975, the state of Michigan was already planning out a replacement bridge to cross the Saginaw River. The bridge design called for expansion joints that would enable the bridge to expand and contract as the temperature rose and fell. They are held together with 20,000 miles of steel cable. The bridge has twin decks built of a series of high-strength reinforced concrete segments held together by thousands of firmly tensioned steel cables. The original Zilwaukee Bridge as a four-lane draw bridge. The To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member. The town's founders called it Zilwaukee to confuse it with the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin in hopes of luring settlers there to work. With the coming of the Interstate Highway System in the late-1950s, the (Thanks to Claire Kerk for the tip!). Zilwaukee Bridge: From the Beginning. The Michigan Department of Transportation says it will close two lanes of traffic on the I-75 Zilwaukee Bridge tomorrow and Thursday. habitat. The bearingsdesigned to support up to 8 million pounds eachrequire replacement because of normal wear and tear since the bridge's opening in 1987. The current eight-lane structure, completed in 1988, is the second such bridge at this location, replacing a four-lane bascule bridge constructed in 1960. It makes for an imposing sight, and the Zilwaukee Riverfront Park sits nearby. spans are complete, the last segment is cast in place to join the spans. at the intersecting roads. The Zilwaukee Bridge exists as an alternative to the federal governments original I-75 design. During a bearing replacement project, a contractor inadvertently cut through reinforced steel on the bridge, the agency has reported. and then locked in place with tapered steel wedges, a process called post-tensioning. Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. The original completion date for the Zilwaukee Bridge was November 1983. part of the I-75/US-10/US-23 freeway. The segments at Zilwaukee were constructed at a specially designed casting Crank up the tunes. built in western Europe and have been found to be generally more economical Its purpose, though, was largely as a seal to keep out water and roadway contaminants. Copyright 2023 ClickOnDetroit.com is managed by Graham Digital and published by Graham Media Group, a division of Graham Holdings. When Some believe this Michigan bridge marks the start of Up North. David J. Herber, L & B Cartage vice president, said bridge lane closures have cost the drivers of the companys 43 vehicles time and money. Copyright 2022 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit - All rights reserved. Department of Transportation in response to public concerns about other ideas had been batted around, including a tunnel under the river The four-lane, bascule bridge (or drawbridge) opened in 1960. Now, an average of 21.6 million vehicles cross the bridge per year. following pages reproduce a 1987 report issued by the Michigan There were engineering calculations done that said this needs to be here and this load needs to be here and this counterweight needs to be here6 and it simply was not followed, former MDOT Chief Bridge Engineer Matt Chynoweth said. Why did it happen? Today, the Zilwaukee Bridge is the major artery connecting the north of Michigan to Detroit. Around 21 million vehicles a year ride up and over the Saginaw River. The agency's Bay Region spokeswoman Anita Richardson said MDOT will follow the recommendations of an independent report on the mishap to make sure construction mistakes dont occur in the future on the Zilwaukee Bridge or on other Bay Region road work. the span for more than a year. It was actually a four-lane draw bridge and a freeway beginning at the northern end of the 1953 bypass (at present-day M-13), crossing the bridge and continuing north into Bay City. Copyright 2022 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit - All rights reserved. Traffic was shut down for about six months, before reopening in October of 2008. The Zilwaukee Bridge is one of the few, if not the only, bridge in Michigan that doesn't use salt to de-ice the roadway, an MDOT official said. All rights reserved (About Us). The concrete bid was $76.8 million. of firmly tensioned steel cables. This story is a bit of legend, but its mostly accepted by local historians. BAY CITY, Mich. (WNEM) - The Bay Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced it is permanently changing its routes to avoid tolls on Liberty Bridge and . Traffic: Estimated 21,600,000 vehicles per year. Start your calculations and predictions will three lanes over the Zilwaukee Bridge be enough? The Zilwaukee Bridge has some impressive specifications. in the first place. auto transporter trucks weighing 40 tons each. Ha! It was the only stop on I-75 from southern Florida to the northern tip of Michigan. directly on the bridge superstructure. Well, hold on -- not exactly. If you need help with the Public File, call (313) 222-0566. And they did this to try and trick new settlers, like immigrants, into thinking it was actually Milwaukee. The largest segments All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. Were talking about, of course, the Zilwaukee Bridge. Kayla is a Web Producer for ClickOnDetroit. We lifted and tilted and jacked it into place. The bridge operator continued to staff the bridge until it was The segments are erected by a massive piece of machinery called a launching After the completion of the new bridge, the Zilwaukee Bridge experienced a stretch of mostly peace for cars and freighters alike. When we were kids this thing was massive and scarrrrrryyyyy!! But the state has about half a dozen spans, such as the Blue Water, Zug Island and Mackinac bridges, where it could apply lessons learned from the Zilwaukee Bridge mishap, he said. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local. You are being asked to avoid the area. to four hours in duration and often up to 30 miles in length. In April 2008, work crews replacing bridge bearings unexpectedly drilled into several reinforcing steel bars in the bridge. In fact, in 1979, the traffic jam was a whopping 56 miles long. one of the most spectacular bridges in the world. Periodically flooded roads around the world. While the remaining ramp connections were Bridge in Zilwaukee and Zilwaukee Township, Michigan, "Z-Bridge screw up remains under investigation", "$70M construction project planned for Zilwaukee Bridge in April", "In the Field Report - "The Zilwaukee Bridge project", "Why Bridges Have Failed Throughout History", "The Z-Bridge: The Turbulent History Behind Michigan's Zilwaukee Bridge", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zilwaukee_Bridge&oldid=1120452718, Buildings and structures in Saginaw County, Michigan, Transportation in Saginaw County, Michigan, Bridges of the United States Numbered Highway System, Short description is different from Wikidata, Infobox mapframe without OSM relation ID on Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 7 November 2022, at 02:38. Department of Transportation. Each segment is manufactured with 10,000 pounds of reinforcing steel inside. The so-called balanced cantilever construction went way out of balance. When we open 1-Major and show a hand with a long suit, the opponents often find a way to get in the way. Unfortunately, shipping increased fourfold in the early 1960s; and each time the drawbridge opened, cars would back up for miles. girder. Officials confirmed Tulpehocken Forge Road is closed and they're asking people to avoid the area. 2/24/2018 Aleana W. It's a iconic MI bridge. $77 million (not counting approaches and ramp work). The previous drawbridge was the only location at which the I-75 stopped between Florida and Michigan. Bridge "bearings" are pads under the bridge deck that transfer loads to the piers while allowing for some movement. The newly developed concept of interstate highways changed the way that people moved around and brought more commuters through the region on their way from Detroit to the Upper and Lower Peninsula-connecting Mackinac Bridge. 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