| OTIA III State Bridge Delivery Program |
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| Web Brief (Mar 06) |
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New Zigzag River Bridge nears completion
A new, longer, more environmentally friendly Zigzag River Bridge is taking shape on the Mt. Hood Highway (U.S. 26) east of the town of Zigzag. When it’s completed, the new 250-foot-long bridge, located at milepost 43, will be one of the longest clear-span steel beam and girder bridges in Oregon. The project, built at a cost of $1.3 million, replaces a 170-foot span built in 1953.
ODOT engineers chose a clear-span steel beam and girder design because it will have less impact on the environment. The length of the new beams allows the supporting piers to be located out of the stream bed within the two-year flood plain. When the bridge is completed, many travelers will have no idea they are even crossing a bridge because all evidence of the supporting superstructure will be hidden beneath them. The new span will carry four lanes of traffic, including eight-foot shoulders for pedestrians and bicyclists.
The Zigzag River Bridge is an OTIA III State Bridge Delivery Program project, part of ODOT’s 10-year, $3 billion Oregon Transportation Investment Act (OTIA) program. Over the next decade, OTIA will repair or replace hundreds of bridges, pave and maintain roads, improve and expand interchanges, add new capacity to Oregon’s highway system, and remove freight bottlenecks statewide.
Oregon companies are involved in the construction of the Zigzag project. They include the general contractor, Mowat Construction Co., which has offices in Clackamas, and the paving company, Jim Turin & Sons, Inc. of Sandy. This is in keeping with a directive by the Oregon Legislature that the bridge program increase contracting opportunities for Oregon firms as a way of stimulating the state’s economy.
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