New Bypass Bridge at Hoover Dam Expected to Open November 2010

The new bridge to bypass Hoover Dam is expected to open about November 2010.  They're still working on both it and the access roads and still do blasting about once a week.

From what I've been reading it appears there is going to be one major change that will affect RVers who want to stop at the dam.  We've always been able to stop at viewpoints near the dam while enroute between Kingman AZ and Las Vegas NV or vice versa.  Apparently sightseers still will be able to drive across the dam from Nevada but they apparently are planning to have an end point on the Arizona side where everyone will have to turn around and drive back to the Nevada side.  At some point there will be an access to the road crossing the bridge so you can then continue on your way.  In practice this means people who want to see the dam but are without a toad will have to drive across the dam and then return.  It seems pretty cumbersome to me, but their goal is to cut tonnage crossing the dam as well as eliminate a huge traffic bottleneck and have better control of security (the bypass was planned before 9/11).

I hope someone has thought out a good parking area near the bridge access road so that larger RVs can park there and use their toads to do their sightseeing.  I also hope there will be parking at each end of the bridge so people can stop to see the dam from there.  It will be interesting to see how they manage the whole thing.

ArdraF

I'm still not crossing that thing.

Wendy

Oh come on Wendy. There are more people licked to death by Golden Retrievers every year than deaths from driving off suspension bridges. 8)

seilerbird said:

Oh come on Wendy. There are more people licked to death by Golden Retrievers every year than deaths from driving off suspension bridges. 8)

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Then I guess I'll stay away from golden retreivers, too ! My adorable hairy kid is a yellow labrador And he doesn't want to go across that bridge either. Of course, Mike does all the driving so I guess I'll have to ask him to let me out in Kingman

Wendy

seilerbird said:

Oh come on Wendy. There are more people licked to death by Golden Retrievers every year than deaths from driving off suspension bridges. 8)

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Ok, we need a source for that statistic

Ned said:

Ok, we need a source for that statistic

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The source is me. ;D

It takes them 4 years to build the dam and 8 years to build the bypass bridge. I wonder if OSHA has anything to do with that.

Yeah, but it only took them 18 months to build the Alaskan Highway, with more primitive tools to work in than all those laser beamed thingys they've got today.    :

Daisy

I'm with you on that one Wendy.  You've have to carry me kicking, screaming and biting across.  NO THANKS !!!!

Personally, I can't wait for the opportunity to cross that bridge.  The old heart will be pounding and the adrenalin will be flowing, but what a sight to look out and see that great Dam from a vantage point not possible just a year ago.

OOOPS!! I just read an article on the building of the bridge and learned that the bridge is so high above the dam that one will not be able to view the dam as they cross the bridge.  Thee will be a walk way for pedestrian traffic on the up river side of the traffic lanes for folks to walk the entire distance across and to view the dam below.  That's gonna be a blast.

I visited the top of the Dam back in the mid '80s, and actually got a tour down inside it back in 1957.  Walking out at the bottom and looking up at that huge monster was quite a thrill for an 18 year old kid.

Wendy said:

I'm still not crossing that thing.

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Wendy, sometimes it helps to watch a confidence building video LIKE THIS stressing how safe bridges are.

Bob,

That can't happen to the bypass bridge. It's not a suspension bridge.

Alaskansnowbirds said:

That can't happen to the bypass bridge. It's not a suspension bridge.

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I know, Don -- it was meant as humor to Wendy or  anyone with a fear of driving over a high bridge, of any type of construction.  I have such a phobia myself on some bridges and roads with drop offs and no guard rails. 

As a civil engineer, studied the Tacoma Narrows failure in structures classes years ago. Actually, during the construction of the arch in the Hoover Bypass bridge -- it  "was" a suspension bridge. Until it was joined at the center and could support itself, the incomplete arch had to be supported by suspension cables.

One hazard that we don't have to worry about for the bypass bridge is being hit by a barge.

Ned said:

One hazard that we don't have to worry about for the bypass bridge is being hit by a barge.

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yea, but now you will have to duck for the air craft.

Suspension or not, I ain't going across that thing !

Wendy, wear a parachute

I think I'll just take a valium about the time we leave Kingman and Mike can wake me up when we hit Vegas. Or better yet, I'll route us so that we don't go that way at all !! Although I would like to see the new bridge, just not be on it !

A friend sent me an email with the following photos and text so I thought I'd share them:

Creeping closer inch by inch, 900 feet above the mighty Colorado River, the two sides of
a $160 million bridge at the Hoover Dam slowly take shape.  The bridge will carry a new
section of US Route 93 past the bottleneck of the old road which can be seen twisting and
winding around and across the dam itself.

When complete, it will provide a new link between the states of Nevada and Arizona .
In an incredible feat of engineering, the road will be supported on the two massive
concrete arches which jut out of the rock face.

The arches are made up of 53 individual sections each 24 feet long which have been
cast on-site and are being lifted into place using an improvised high-wire crane strung
between temporary steel pylons.

The arches will eventually measure more than 1,000 feet across.
At the moment, the structure looks like a traditional suspension bridge. 
But once the arches are complete, the suspending cables on each side will be removed.
Extra vertical columns will then be installed on the arches to carry the road.
The bridge has become known as the Hoover Dam bypass, although it is officially called
the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, after a former governor of Nevada
and an American Football player from Arizona who joined the US Army and was killed
in Afghanistan.

Work on the bridge started in 2005 and should finish later this year. An estimated 17,000
cars and trucks will cross it every day.

The dam was started in 1931 and used enough concrete to build a road from New York
to San Francisco . The stretch of water it created, Lake Mead , is 110 miles long and
took six years to fill.  The original road was opened at the same time as the famous dam in 1936.

An extra note: The top of the white band of rock in Lake Mead is the old waterline prior
to the drought and development in the Las Vegas area. It is over 100 feet above the
current water level.

Thanks for the very interesting post.  Not sure if I will be able to get DW to go over it, may still need to go around by Laughlin.