John James Audubon Bridge

The bridge is climbing every day. The concrete piers must be up 5o feet now. They look massive.

The Flatiron consortium now says it will be 2011 when it will be finished.

The piers are about half way up the pole crane. That may be an indication of the final height. Not sure, but with a 1,300 or so foot span, it will be plenty tall. Being a cable tie structure, it means that the cables will be tied off at the deck, string back to the piers. It would seem a like number of tie offs will be equal on both sides of the piers so that the load is focused on the piers. So if the span is 1,300 feet, that means tie backs will occur back from the piers at least 650 feet.

That's probably why the sets of steel piers between the concrete piers and the river banks are so small. They probably were added to provide sway stability of the bridge by pinning the decking on the land sides, not so much as to load bearing duties. The bridge has to rise over the levee on the New Roads side. On the St Francisville side, it comes off the bluffs. Bridges at Natchez, Vicksburg and even Memphis, all have bluffs on the eastern shore and ramps on the western shore, even the old Baton Rouge bridge (aka Huey P. Long Bridge on US 190) comes down on the Baton Rouge side on a bluff. In fact, at Natchez and Vicksburg one has to go down to get on the bridge to cross and climb on the Louisiana side to get on the bridge.

The bridge will be well south of St Francisville, it will be a drive, perhaps 10-12 miles to get to St Francisville. Not as far for New Roads but at least six or so miles depending where and if there are interchanges between the bridge and State Route 1/10 connection at about Hospital Road. One will be able to look down on Waterloo Subdivision on the south and Big Cajun #2 coal fire power plant on the north side. I would suppose Doctor Roberts would roll over in his grave had he known the bridge would cross where it does, almost squarely on his land.

One notes there are several pipe lines crossing the river at the same general location. It must be a narrower section of the river. And the river sort of flows north to south there.

It is said that one can see the smoke stacks for Big Cajun #2 from the new bridge at Baton Rouge, the I-10 bridge, they stacks extend up to 500 feet. I am figuring that the bridge piers will go almost that high. So one can see the new bridge from mid Baton Rouge on a clear day.

There will be a new route to Baton Rouge now. Cross the river at New Roads and turn south on US 65. A little longer but perhaps more fun.

We will miss the ferry. The ferries at Baton Rouge are gone, now the one at New Roads will be gone. I wonder if the ferry will be sent over to do duty at Melville, LA. That's where the old Jefferson highway from New Orleans, to Baton Rouge, to Alexandria goes through. A little history there.