Almonaster Avenue Bridge

The Almonaster Avenue Bridge is a bascule bridge in New Orleans, Louisiana. The bridge has two vehicular lanes of Almonaster Road and two railroad tracks over the Industrial Canal.

The bridge is named after Almonaster Avenue on which it is built. It is one of the first four bridges built by the Port of New Orleans and was completed in 1919 [ [http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=almonasteravenuenuebridge-neworleans-la-usa Almonaster Avenue Bridge, New Orleans / Emporis.com ] ] in order to provide railroad access across the Inner Harbor-Navigational Canal, locally referred to as the Industrial Canal. Besides Almonaster Bridge, two of the sister bridges at St. Claude Avenue and Seabrook, remain in service today. Seabrook Bridge remains a railroad bridge only.

The bridge has a horizontal clearance of 83 feet with unlimited vertical clearance when fully retracted.

The Almonaster Bridge provides two vehicular lanes and a single railroad track crossing down the center of the span.

Since Hurricane Katrina destroyed the roadways leading up to it, the bridge now normally stays in the up position, being lowered as needed for rail traffic. The Port of New Orleans, the Regional Planning Commission, and the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development have an ongoing feasibility study underway for replacing the bridge with a modern structure.

References

Crossings navbox
structure = Crossings
place = Industrial Canal
bridge = Almonaster Avenue Bridge
bridge signs =
upstream text = West
upstream = Florida Avenue Bridge
upstream signs =
downstream text = East
downstream = I-10 High Rise Bridge
downstream signs =