Award Winning Bridges in California Owned and Designed by Caltrans

The California legislature originally authorized state engineering staff to design their own highways and bridges in 1923 [Caltrans 1999] (Figure 1). For approximately eighty-seven years state employees have designed bridges for the state highway and interstate system in California. There are approximately 300 award winning bridges that have been cost effectively designed by state employees and are maintained and operated by Caltrans (www.dot.ca.gov) for the taxpayers of the state of California. The Professional Engineers in California Government (PECG) (www.pecg.org) was created in 1963 as an organization to represent the interests of public employees. PECG's function was primarily to highlight the technical achievements and viewpoints of state employees. In the 1970's with the passage of the Ralph C Dills Act, PECG took over the additional role of representing engineering and related classes in bargaining with their California government employer. Thus the authors as engineers employed by the state of California Department of Transportation belong to both PECG and ASCE. Featured bridges in this short paper and poster are mainly the best known structures recognized by the bridge industry and others as state of the art in bridge engineering. Leading educators such as Professor David Billington believe that structural engineering is an art form with creative individuals due recognition by society, such as award programs (Figure 1). A Bridge Architecture Aesthetics unit has been part of Caltrans structures design since the 1930's. A licensed Architect has managed the unit of technicians, renderers and scale model makers since the 1960's. Caltrans engineers have also designed several notable tunnels and the Webster Precast Concrete Tube, which opened in 1963 (Figure 2).