William V Roth Jr. Bridge

The Senator William V. Roth Jr. Bridge, originally called the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal Bridge, is a cable-stayed bridge across the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal near St. Georges, Delaware. It is owned and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

This bridge was built from 1992 to 1995 to provide a bypass for the aging St. Georges Bridge. It eventually became part of the new DE-1, which was designed as a “relief route” to reduce the traffic on US-13.

This was the first pre-cast concrete bridge to be built in the United States. The spans are built entirely using precast segmental box sections, which were cast off-site and delivered on barges. The bridge is constructed as two parallel spans, which are joined by concrete trusses on the underside.

Another interesting feature is that this bridge only has one span that is truly suspended. The main span over the canal is suspended, but the approach spans on either side are supported by piers. Cable-stayed bridges typically have three suspended spans (a main span and an approach on either side) which act together to balance the loads. However, on the Roth Bridge, the cables are not actually attached to the towers. Instead, they pass through the towers in tubes (called saddles). This allows the weight of the suspended span to counterbalance the weight of the approach spans, instead of the towers holding up the weight. This allows the towers to be smaller and slenderer than the towers required for a typical cable-stayed bridge. There is also a small joint between the towers and the bridge deck, which allows the bridge to flex.

The bridge was officially named after Senator William V. Roth Jr. in November 2006.

The bridge underwent a repair project from March to December of 2022. This project primarily replaced the deck overlay