Benicia Segmental Bridge

• Project started in 2001
• Project was completed August 2007 
• Project Type: Heavy Civil 
• Owner: California Department of Transportation 
• Location: Oakland, CA 
• Contract Amount: $762 Million 
• Designer: T.Y. Lin/CH2M Hill 

The new Benicia-Martinez Bridge is a four frame, 2,266 meter long by 25 meter wide cast-in-place, post tensioned, segmental concrete bridge spanning the Carquinez Strait. The superstructure is supported by seventeen pile-supported foundations, twelve of which are located in water. The bridge carries five lanes of northbound Interstate 680 traffic and has the potential for a future BART light rail lane.

Some of the major quantities on this project include: 130 steel piles, 17 piers, 11 pier tables, 335 concrete segments, 9 hinge segments and 9 closure segments. The entire structure was built using over 26 million kilograms of reinforcing steel and 128,000 cubic meters of concrete.

At the peak of construction the job employed over 300 craft and 100 staff. The project used a special light weight concrete mix which required special sand shipped by barge from Vancouver BC, and lightweight aggregate shipped by rail from North Carolina. The hinges are one of a kind, first generation design for seismic movement.