Traffic Live Load on Sidewalk 1

[Aryal]

Does Traffic Live load applies on sidewalk along with pedestrian load? Sidewalk is between exterior barrier and interior barrier, i.e vehicle can not mount on sidewalk. AASHTO says "The pedestrian load shall not be considered to act concurrently with vehicles", I assumed that only pedestrian load of 0.075 ksf on sidewalk and no traffic load on sidewalk. But later when I analysis the model using PG Super software, I found that traffic live load is considered on sidewalk too and there is no any option to consider only pedestrian load.

 

[BridgeSmith]

If there is a crash-worthy traffic barrier between the roadway and and sidewalk, then traffic loads (other than maintenance vehicles, if the sidewalk is over 8' wide) do not need to be considered.

We consider the case where in the future the sidewalk may be removed and there may be a traffic lane where the sidewalk was.

There's also the somewhat strange thing that AASHTO LRFD does with the multiple presence factor (MPF) with pedestrian loads. The pedestrian loading on the sidewalk is considered a "Loaded Lane" for the purposes of determining the MPF for the load distribution for the girders.

In order to simplify the load cases for bridges with sidewalks, we have taken the conservative approach of including the component dead load of a raised sidewalk with the design truck+lane Live Loads, rather than dealing with the several load cases involving pedestrian and traffic loading.

Rod Smith, P.E., The artist formerly known as HotRod10