The robert e. Lee bridge, is a segmental box girder structure which replaced the concrete arch bridge that had carried u.S. Route 1 over the james river in richmond, virginia since 1934. The typical 285-foot span, , variable depth girder was erected to emulate the arches of its soon-to-be-demolished predecessor. Three northbound and three southbound lanes with full 10-foot shoulders marked as bicycle paths and 4-foot sidewalks on each side travel across 15 spans. The typical width of the northbound and southbound bridges is 54 ft 1 1/2in. The bridge has bifurcated sections off the southbound structureat the south end and to the north. Both the northbound and southbound structures have ramps tying into second street which runs under the new bridge. The fifteen spans (total length 3, 755 ft) were built by balanced cantilever method with the exception of the first span from the south abutment and the three ramps which were built on falsework. The superstructure is divided into areas by six joints with typical joint locations at the abutments and at the center of the 285-foot spans. The appearance from below the bridge was a major concernbecause of the public use of the island park. The cast-in-place solution provided smooth curved sections with monolithic pours providing a consistent soffit texture and color. In addition, the number of piers was minimized with the two-box system providing a more open view. Plans presently call for supporting a pedestrian bridge from thesuperstructure under four typical spans from the north shore to belle island. This paper appears in transportation research record no.1290, Third bridge engineering conference, march 10-13, 1991, denver, colorado, volume 2.
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