Cambie Street Bridge Website Links For
Street
 

Information About

Cambie Street Bridge




.]]

The Cambie Street Bridge is a six lane bridge in Vancouver , British Columbia crossing False Creek .


HISTORY


Accompanied by the Duchess and their daughter, ''Princess Patricia'', Canada’s Governor General, the Duke Of Connaught , visited Vancouver to officiate at the ceremony naming the brand-new Connaught Bridge on September 20, 1912.

The name ''Connaught'' never caught on and everyone called it the after the street that ran on it, Cambie .

The first bridge "Cambie Street Bridge" was built as a simple piled timber trestle with a trussed timber swing span near the middle. It cost $12,000 ( CAD ).

The next bridge was a four-lane, medium level steel bridge, 1,247 metres long with streetcar tracks, completed in 1911 for $740,000. The concept was similar to the second Granville Street Bridge . The navigation span was a steel through-truss swing span which the city would open on four hours' notice. In 1953 it opened 79 times. Even in its later years, it was opened once or twice a week. The trusses of the swing span projected through the bridge deck, dividing the two outer lanes from the two inner lanes. This caused many motor vehicle collisions. In April 1915 the creosoted wood deck caught fire, with the collapse of a 24.4 metre steel side span.

The entire Cambie crossing was closed for nine months, starting November 1984, while the present higher six-lane concrete bridge was merged with the existing approaches. The new bridge cost $50 million.


SEE ALSO




REFERENCES