Lincoln Avenue Bridge

Overview

The Lincoln Avenue Bridge in Colorado links the Willow Creek Trail and enables walkers, joggers and bicyclists to safely cross busy Lincoln Avenue, which sees up to 89,000 vehicles a day. Spanning 170 feet, the cable-stayed, landmark structure features a large, leaf-shaped mast on its south end that rises 78 feet. Six pairs of cables extend from the leaf to support the bridge. A translucent ETFE roof allows sunlight to pass through while providing protection from the elements with lighting that illuminates the roof at night.

We provided structural design and facade engineering services to Fentress Architects for the bridge, which opened to the public in 2018.

Highlights

• The final sizing of the bridge was a balancing act between the strength to carry the imposed loads, stiffness to yield acceptance movements under use, economy through efficiency of sections, type of member and detailing and close attention to the aesthetic vision.
• The cable-stay structure was chosen because it is a highly efficient design that reduces the weight of the bridge, as well as the amount of materials and costs involved in its construction.
• The pylon base is influenced by the fabrication process and the erection requirements.
• Our team worked closely with the fabricator and developed local finite element models of connections to optimize the configuration and sizing of the pylon and to facilitate an accelerated procurement process.