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The Cooper River Bridge's two diamond-shaped towers each measure approximately 575 feet tall. |
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The structure is the longest cable-stayed bridge in North America. |
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The design-build delivery method enabled SCDOT to save $150 million in costs and time. |
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Tackling Environmental Obstacles
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Seventy-five percent of the bridge was constructed over or adjacent to the sensitive wetlands and water bodies of the Cooper River system. Therefore, special attention was paid to the project's environmental impact from the earliest testing through construction. Temporary trestles were utilized in lieu of fill during construction to minimize the impact on wetlands, and the bridge's lighting scheme was modified to ease the effect on nesting Loggerhead sea turtles and various migratory bird species.
PB's design also addressed some of the most challenging seismic- and weather-related conditions in the U.S. Because of a magnitude 7.3 earthquake in Charleston in 1886, PB conducted several time-dependent, nonlinear analyses to evaluate the effects of a similar event. The bridge is also designed to withstand hurricane-force winds similar to those of Hurricane Hugo, which swept across the region in 1989.
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