In honor of the 100th anniversary of the completion of Sacramento’s I Street bridge, the Sacramento History Museum in Old Sacramento will unveil a special exhibit showcasing photographs of the beloved bridge on Saturday, April 28, 2012.   This Sacramento landmark was built by the Southern Pacific in 1912 with contributions by Sacramento and Yolo counties.  A true engineering accomplishment in its day, this bridge was built to last.  In fact, the first train to cross the bridge did so on April 29, 1912, and train travel on the bridge continues to this day.  The Sacramento History Museum invites the community to visit the photo display and learn more about the history of this enduring land

The 75-year-old Tower Bridge connecting Sacramento and West Sacramento may be one of the area’s icons, but the more industrial steel-truss I Street Bridge is older – built 100 years ago. “The I Street Bridge is a very important part of our business today,” said Aaron Hunt, spokesman for the Union Pacific railroad, which owns the bridge. “We run trains across it every day of the year.” The I Street Bridge is 363 feet long and weighs about 7 million pounds, according to a fact sheet distributed by Union Pacific. When it was built, the swinging center of the bridge was the heaviest of its type in the world, and though it no longer holds that distinction, it remains the heaviest in the Unit

The City Council approved $30,915 for the design phase of H Street Bridge Repairs Project Tuesday, which will be done by Dokken Engineering. H Street Bridge is located where H and J streets come together on the west side of the bridge. The bridge turns into Fair Oaks Boulevard and connects the areas of downtown and East Sacramento. Assistant Civil Engineer for the Department of Transportation Josh Werner said the bridge was built in 1932, and improvements were last done in 1991 to 1992 to widen the bridge and reconstruct the bridge approach on the east side. Department of Transportation Engineering Services Manager Nicholas Theocharides said that while the work being done is nothing maj

One of Sacramento’s iconic landmarks, Tower Bridge, celebrates its 75th anniversary Wednesday. At its inauguration on Dec. 15, 1935, the opening was heralded with the release of about 100 homing pigeons, who carried the news throughout the state. Although it’s now a lot easier to spread news, Caltrans spokesman Mike Dinger said the bridge operates with the same basic equipment it has for the past three quarters of a century. “We’ve made some upgrades for safety, but it’s almost all the original equipment,” he said. Bridge construction began in July of 1934, using some of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal funds for the project, which was estimated to cost $700,000. The final price

The two city-funded bridges under construction in the railyards are scheduled to be completed next month. The bridges will make Fifth and Sixth streets continuous where they are currently cut off by the railyards just east of the Amtrak station downtown. “The bridges will be for both vehicle traffic and pedestrians,” said Linda Tucker, spokeswoman for the Sacramento Department of Transportation. The transition of much of the railyards property from Thomas Enterprises to Inland American Real Estate Trust, Inc. following Thomas Enterprises’ defaulting on loans will not affect the bridge construction, since they are on city-owned land, according to Tucker. When it comes to the track reali

The new City of Sacramento General Plan includes additional Sacramento River crossings without specifying the location or number of crossings or the transportation modes served by new crossings. The cost of the study will be $260,000 with both The City of Sacramento and the City of West Sacramento sharing the costs for the planning study with West Sacramento contributing $60,000 to that total. The study is expected to be completed in one year, starting in January and ending in December 2010. The study will include: • A transparent and proactive public outreach process; • A purpose and need statement which is grounded in the community values stated in the two cities' General Plan policies