130th Street Bridge

Most Recent Visit To Bridge: August 11, 2006

This bridge was apparently built as a stationary structure because there was enough room to build an approach to the taller clearance a stationary bridge would require. They apparently never needed a lot of clearance back inland this far, since bridges like this as well as bascule bridges in Joliet are limited in terms of how tall of a boat they can accept. Large Great Lakes freighters for instance might not be able to get under this bridge. They seem to use barges to move stuff in Joliet instead.

With a 1949 construction date, this bridge is representative of later post-1940 truss bridges that sometimes used weird hybrid truss configurations that didn't fit into the historical categories of truss configurations. This bridge is essentially a modified Warren truss. The main members follow the Warren design, but the added members make the bridge have the appearance of a Pennsylvania truss. This is essentially a Warren-Pennsylvania truss I guess! There are unusual circle shapes seen at the bottom of the portal bracing. There is lattice present on some areas of the bridge. This bridge is very busy and carries a ton a traffic including many heavy trucks.

You can see a number of other historic bridges from this bridge, but the bridge I call the 130th Avenue Railroad Bridge which is a parallel railroad bridge is the nearest.