Fred Hartman Bridge
The Fred Hartman Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge in the U.S. state of Texas spanning the Houston Ship Channel. The bridge carries 2.6 miles (4.2 km) of State Highway 146 (SH 146), between the cities of Baytown and La Porte (east of Houston). The bridge is also expected to carry State Highway 99 (SH 99) (Grand Parkway) when it is completed around Houston.
Fred Hartman Bridge | |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 29.70347°N 95.01742°W |
| Carries | 8 lanes of SH 146 |
| Crosses | Houston Ship Channel |
| Locale | Harris County, south of Baytown, Texas and north of La Porte, Texas |
| Official name | Fred Hartman Bridge |
| Maintained by | Texas Department of Transportation |
| Characteristics | |
| Design | fan arranged cable-stayed bridge |
| Material | Cables: polymer-wrapped twisted steel wire bundles pylons: reinforced concrete main deck: reinforced concrete approach deck: precast prestressed concrete |
| Total length | 4.185 kilometers (2.60 mi) |
| Width | 47 meters (154 ft) |
| Height | 133 meters (436 ft) (pylon) |
| Longest span | 381 meters (1,250 feet) |
| Clearance above | 80.6 meters (262 feet) |
| Clearance below | 54.8 meters (178 feet) |
| History | |
| Construction start | 1986 |
| Construction end | 1995 |
| Opened | September 27, 1995 |
| Statistics | |
| Toll | none |
| Location | |
The bridge, named for Fred Hartman (1908–1991), the editor and publisher of the Baytown Sun from 1950 to 1974, is the longest cable-stayed bridge in Texas, and one of only four such bridges in the state, the others being Veterans Memorial Bridge in Orange County, Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge in Dallas and Bluff Dale Suspension Bridge in Erath County. It is the 77th largest bridge in the world. The construction cost of the bridge was $91.25 million.
The bridge replaced the Baytown Tunnel (of depth clearance 40 feet or 12.2 m). The tunnel had to be removed when the Houston Ship Channel was deepened to 45 feet (13.7 m), with a minimum 530 feet (161.5 m) bottom width, to accommodate larger ships. The last section of the Baytown Tunnel was removed from the Houston Ship Channel on September 14, 1999, with removal of the tunnel being the responsibility of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).