Misplaced Pages

Viaduct

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 68.145.197.131 (talk) at 06:17, 17 July 2005. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 06:17, 17 July 2005 by 68.145.197.131 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Toronto's Bloor Street Viaduct bridges the Don valley; road traffic uses the upper deck, rail traffic uses the lower deck.

A viaduct is a bridge that connects points of equal height in a landscape, usually by bridging a river valley or other eroded opening in an otherwise flat area. Often such valleys have roads descending either side (with a small bridge over the river, where necessary) that become inadequate for the traffic load, necessitating a viaduct for through traffic. Such bridges also lend themselves for use by rail traffic, which requires straighter and flatter routes. It gets its name from an analogy with aqueduct, which must be level, while a bridge for people, pack animals or non-rail vehicles can be hump-backed and gain a structural advantage (i.e., less material or design sophistication needed) from that shape.

Some well-known viaducts include:

Template:Arch-stub