Baluarte Bridge, Cable-stayed bridge in Concordia, Mexico
The Baluarte Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge on the Durango–Mazatlán highway, crossing the Baluarte River gorge in the Sierra Madre Occidental. Its four-lane deck is 1,124 meters long and 20 meters wide, with a 520-meter central span. The deck sits 403 meters above the riverbed, supported by 12 piers and two concrete pylons, the taller P5 rising 169 meters.
Construction began on February 21, 2008, and the bridge was inaugurated on January 5, 2012, with traffic opening in late 2013, replacing a dangerous mountain road from the 1940s that required mules to transport construction supplies through remote terrain.
The official name Puente Baluarte Bicentenario marks the 2010 bicentenary of Mexico's 1810 independence declaration; the inauguration was pushed back from the planned 2010 date. Guinness World Records officials certified it at the January 5, 2012 ceremony as the world's highest cable-stayed bridge, a title it held until 2016.
The bridge carries four lanes of traffic along the Durango-Mazatlán highway, reducing travel time between the two cities from approximately eight hours to about two and a half hours, with an expected daily traffic volume of around 2,000 vehicles.
The construction involved over 1,500 workers using 12,000 tons (10,900 metric tons) of steel and 90,000 cubic meters of concrete, with the tallest pylon reaching 554 feet (169 meters) and 76 steel cables arranged in a semi-fan pattern supporting the roadway from towers on either side of the deep canyon.
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