Sacramento Delta Rio Vista bridge / politics (#1206)

Not a particularly exciting picture if you don’t know the history. The Sacramento River bridge in Rio Vista is a long lift bridge which is surprising to see when traveling that area. You’re in rural farming area alongside a river that seems to be mainly used recreationally, so why the need for a tall and long center span (see the picture linked below). The reason is that Sacramento, 30 miles further inland, is a port (see that picture). All that this picture proves is that the center section of the bridge does occasionally raise, though this time it was just for sail boat.

It would be interesting to find the background on Sacramento being a port for ocean-going vessels. Though there was a history of steamboats on the river, it was not a port for ocean-going ships until a very long, straight, environmentally highly questionable ship channel was begun in 1949 to a port that didn’t open until 1963. The port is small and doesn’t handle container ships, so its focus is on bulk cargo such as the agricultural produce from the Central Valley. I don’t understand, other than graft, why a port was built in Sacramento when there exists good rail lines for moving freight to the much larger ports on San Francisco Bay.

Rio Vista bridge: www.flickr.com/photos/donbrr/4594473893
Map of channel: goo.gl/maps/X9fphzSa7cREKsTS7
Sacramento port: www.flickr.com/photos/donbrr/4588242879