Gallery of Arizona Bridges

Cedar Canyon

The Cedar Canyon Bridge project completed in 1994, consisted of reusing an arch from Corduroy Creek Bridge to widen and rehabilitate the arch at Cedar Canyon. Both bridges were constructed in 1936-37 with a 24 foot clear roadway and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places as technically significant examples of the girder-ribbed arch type bridge structure. These were two of only three bridges of this type in Arizona.

Cedar Canyon was originally spanned by a 180 foot long girder-ribbed arch with a 25 foot south approach span and two 25 foot north approach spans for a total bridge length of 278 feet. The two arch ribs were spaced 21 feet apart with a rise of 31'-6. The bridge was widened to 49'-2 by placing the Corduroy Creek arch parallel to the Cedar Canyon arch. Every effort was made to maintain the appearance of the original structure while rehabilitating the Cedar Canyon Bridge. As many pieces of the original bridge as possible were reused, including the tower fasciae. The traffic barriers were reconstructed using concrete jersey barriers with the original barrier pattern inset into the back face. In addition, button head bolts were used for the new connections to simulate the appearance of the original riveted connections.

The first phase of the project consisted of maintaining traffic on the Cedar Canyon Bridge while the arch at Corduroy was to be disassembled into five pieces at the field splices, moved five miles down the road, and reassembled over the 140 foot deep canyon at the Cedar Canyon site. The contractor used the partnering process to value engineer a proposal to move the arch in one piece as a single unit saving both time and money. In order to counter the arch thrust and lift the arch, brackets were attached to the ends of the arch ribs and then tensioned with four half inch diameter prestressing strands per rib. The contractor used two cranes to lift the arch at Corduroy onto a tractor driven dolly system. The road was closed for two hours as the truck mounted arch was driven to the Cedar Canyon site and then lowered onto the new skewback foundations. Once the arch was in place, the new superstructure and deck were constructed. The second phase consisted of routing the traffic onto the widened half, removing the deck, floor beams and stringers from the original Cedar Canyon Bridge, and then replacing them with a strengthened system. The final widened bridge carries two-way traffic on one of the most scenic sections of US 60.