Historic wooden drawbridge restored

Mitchell River Bridge stands open waiting on sailboats in Chatham, Massachusetts. This historic wooden bascule bridge is the last surviving drawbridge in Massachusetts.

AECOM was hired to re-engineer the structurally deficient bridge that could no longer fully open and also had a failing road structure. Being an historic structure required replacing the wood timber design with similar components. The new $14 million bridge design features a wooden superstructure, including the road surface, railings and sidewalks. Its substructure is comprised of concrete-filled steel pilings – the parts in contact with the water – and concrete pile caps that support the superstructure.

This exposure was taken at 1/100th of a second at f 8.0 at ISO 200 on a Canon 1Dx mk II camera with 70-200mm lens with a heliopan circular polarizing filter.

Photo © Robb Williamson / AECOM