River Oaks Bicycle/ Pedestrian Trail Bridge, Santa Clara County

The Project

This project provided Final design for a mixed-use trail and bridge across Guadalupe River. The River Oaks Bicycle/Pedestrian Bridge project constructed a mixed-use trail and bridge structure to connect the residents in the Rivermark area of Santa Clara to the Light Rail system along First Street in San Jose. Unlike other trails, this trail has a transportation and commuter focus. Key project features include 1,000 feet of paved trail, a 230-foot-long bowstring bridge, and a switchback ramp from the top of the levee down to the surrounding grade. Project amenities include information signs, benches, project look-outs ramps and trail lighting.

The Challenges

Due to environmental concerns, the project needed to span across the entire creek. Constructability concerns dominated the early planning phase of the project. How do you transport the bridge and assemble it? How do you place a 92-ton, 230-foot long structure in such a constricted space? Can the levees support the weight of cranes? Because this was a commuter route for bicyclists, it was important to come up with a faster alternative to utilizing the switchback ramps.

The Results

During the planning stage, MTCo solicited the expertise of a crane contractor to evaluate feasible methods of construction—ranging from using multiple cranes and splicing the bridge mid-air to using helicopter assisted assembly. Ultimately, one of the largest cranes on the west coast was employed to lift the whole prefabricated bridge and swing it precisely onto sixteen bolts — all without impacting the riverbed. To accommodate the bicyclists, wheel ramps on each side of the 12-foot-wide staircase were built to allow bicyclist to simply roll their bikes down instead of carrying them down the stairs.