The Pine Valley Creek Bridge, officially named the Nello Irwin Greer Memorial Bridge, is a
reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete, also called ferroconcrete or ferro-concrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having higher tensile strength or ...
box girder bridge
A box girder bridge, or box section bridge, is a bridge in which the main beam (structure), beams comprise girders in the shape of a hollow box. The box girder normally comprises prestressed concrete, structural steel, or a composite ma ...
in
San Diego County
San Diego County (), officially the County of San Diego, is a county in the southwest corner of the U.S. state of California, north to its border with Mexico. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,298,634; it is the second-most populous ...
,
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
, near the town of
Pine Valley. The bridge was built in 1974 as part of the
Interstate 8 (I-8) freeway system. At the time of its construction, it was the first bridge constructed in the United States using the segmental balanced cantilever method.
The northern span is long while the southern span is long.
The two spans rise above the valley floor,
placing Pine Valley Creek Bridge among the
highest bridges in the United States.
Originally known unofficially as the Pine Valley Creek Bridge, a California State Senate concurrent resolution (SCR-33) officially named the bridge in honor of the project engineer, Nello Irwin Greer, responsible for designing the section of I-8 known as the "Pine Valley Project".
In the original design, the freeway's routing followed the old
U.S. Route 80 (US 80) path through the center of the town of Pine Valley. This would have destroyed much of the town and many of the native pines found there. Greer's design re-routed the freeway to the south through Pine Valley Creek Canyon, bypassing and preserving the quaint beauty of this eastern San Diego County mountain community. This new design also saved of freeway construction, saving millions of dollars in costs.
See also
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List of bridges in the United States by height
This is a list of the highest bridges in the United States by height over land or water.
Definitions
''Height'' in this list refers to the distance from the bridge deck to the lowest point on the land, or the water surface, directly below. A b ...
References
Bridges in San Diego County, California
Bridges on the Interstate Highway System
Concrete bridges in California
Road bridges in California
Interstate 8
Bridges completed in 1974
U.S. Route 80
Box girder bridges in the United States
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