en.Wedoany.com Reported - The $74 million Mosquito Road Bridge project in El Dorado County, California (with a total overall cost of $102 million) is scheduled for completion in late summer 2026. The 1,200-foot-long cast-in-place balanced cantilever bridge will connect the communities of Placerville and Swansboro, replacing a wooden suspension bridge built in 1939, which will be preserved for pedestrian and bicycle use. The bridge deck rises 400 feet above the South Fork of the American River canyon and features two 12-foot-wide lanes, 5-foot shoulders, and 54-inch-high guardrails.
Project Manager Charles Marrow stated that due to the remote location and extreme height of the bridge, Irvine-based Shimmick Construction Company employed unique construction techniques for this bridge project. The superstructure utilizes the cast-in-place balanced cantilever construction method, advancing segmentally using a modular form traveler system, progressing 15 feet at a time, extending from the piers toward both ends. The bridge superstructure consists of over 68 cast-in-place cantilever segments, with the box girder ends cast on falsework, and the deck paved with a polyester concrete overlay.
The bridge project faced logistical challenges due to the remote terrain. The south side, approximately 10 miles from Placerville, is supplied with concrete by Folsom Ready Mix. The north side is accessible only via logging roads, adding an hour-long drive for material transport. The project team set up an on-site batch plant on the north side to produce concrete, with equipment mobilization taking several weeks. Shimmick also partnered with McNary Bergeron & Johannesen for bridge modeling and geometry control, ensuring the design geometry is achieved after 27 years of settlement by precisely measuring pier inclination at each construction stage.
This bridge project is the largest capital project in El Dorado County, funded through the Federal Highway Bridge Program, with all costs reimbursed to the county by the federal government. In May 2022, the County Board of Supervisors awarded the construction contract to Shimmick Construction, with groundbreaking occurring in September of the same year. The new bridge will meet traffic demands, accommodate growing tourism, and improve access for emergency responders and wildfire crews.
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