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Waldport is a town about 15 miles south of Newport, on the south bank of the Alsea Bay, which is where the Alsea River enters the Pacific Ocean. It's a charming town.And, like the highway crossing at Newport, it has its own signature bridge. This is it.
While it's much newer than the Yaquina Bay Bridge, it carries the same themes of sweep and arch that most Oregon Coast Highway bridges do.
Conde McCullough's mark lives on, you might say.
The current bridge dates from 1991. Up until then the original McCullough design spanned the mouth of the bay; built in the 1930s, its construction was sturdy but not durable enough for the rather corrosive weather that the Oregon Coast delivered season in and season out, year after year. By the 1980s the maintenance became expensive enough that the cost of replacing the bridge didn't seem so expensive after all.
This span has four lanes in both directions (compared to the only-one-lane in each direction that the Yaquina Bay Bridge) does and has a much wider-open feeling.
The pillars on each end of the bridge borrow from the original design motifs as well. It's not a McCullough design, but if he were alive today, it could have been. It understands the design grammar he laid down like a native.
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