Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-01-06
THE NEW BRIDGES.
How They are PrOgresslng-TOu
of InSDeCttOn.

of Inspection.
The members of the Council who hav,
succeeded in engineering through th'
scheme by which the city gets fou
bridges for just about the cost of one
feel pretty good over the result of thei
| efforts. A HERALD reporter accompanied
Captain Barrett and Councilman Hanley
yesterday afternoon. together with AS
sistant City Surveyor Roach, when they
went on tour of inspection to see how
| the work was progressing.
The old First.street bridge is now erect
in its new location across the river at
Ninth street. Work upon it is not quite
finished, but before long it will be able
to take traffic and will tend greatly to
develop an important quarter of the city.
1t serves for the purpose of new bridge
for locality which has not had the
means of crossing the river, and although
1t has seen a number of years. OF service
it is still ready to stand ten or twelve
more. The east bank of the river will
be dyked by the Salt Lake road, and it also
provides the approach on that side.
The construction of the bulwark all along
the east bank of the river which is part
"a ehO PAASC "a thO AOW lOdu ARhOhloO,
and the construction of the bridges at
Ninth and at Seventh streets is matter
of vast consequence to the property
owners of that part of the city.
At Seventh street a combination iron
and wood bridge is in process of con.
struction, the iron caissons which form
the piers having been sunk and filled
with concrete. This is the Cushing
patent. A number of piles are driven
26 feet into the sand of the riverbed to
the low-water level. These are girded
together by heavy iron caisson extend
ing down around them for ten feet, and
up ten feet out OF the water. The whole
is then made solid by mass of concrete
which fills in between the piles and
practically makes a huge stone post.
The materials for the Seventh-street
bridges are many of them now on hand,
and the work will probably be finished
in little over month.
The First.stre and Downey-avenue
bridges are to be of solid iron resting
on the same form of piers
IS are used at Seventh street.
These are to be constructed on scale
commensurate with the large amount of
traffic which they are destined to bear in
the near future. On each side of the
river there will be long viaducts high
enough to allow the two railroads, the
Santa Fe on the west bank and the Salt
Lake on the east bank, to pass under
meath. The total length of each will be
over 1,100 feet, including the two ap-
proaches, each 240 feet, the viaduct over
the Santa Fe Of $40 feet, the bridge over
the river of 300 feet, and the viaduct
over the Utah road OF sixty feet. The
cost of each will be somewhere in the
neighborhood of $4,000. The materials
Tor their construction are now on their
way here, and the two thoroughfares will
be open to the public some time before
the first of April.
The funds to carry out this undertak-
ing-the building of four bridges-are
supplied partly by the city and partly by
the various corporations which will be |
benefited by their construction. The |
Santa Fe road pays $25, 900 for the two
over its rails, the cable
road gives $4,000 for the privll-
the First street and Downey
bridges. The Salt Lake road in the |
money it pays and the part it takes in |
the construction bears about $25, 900 of
the expense. For its share the city puts |
up $50 800, or just about the cost OF a |
good new bridge. Thus for an outlay of
less than seventy thousand dollars Los
Angeles gets four new bridges, making a
total within the city limits Of eight cross
ings to the river where there were for
merly only five. The fact that two of
these new bridges have viaducts crossing
all railroad tracks is of considerable i'm
portance to those who drive about the
CITY for pleasure.