Burrard Bridge

Burrard Bridge
Coordinates	49.27547°N 123.136643°W / 49.27547; -123.136643
Carries	5 lanes of Burrard Street Pedestrians and bicycles
Crosses	False Creek
Locale	Vancouver
Maintained by	City of Vancouver
Characteristics
Design	truss bridge
History
Opened	1932
Location

The Burrard Bridge (sometimes referred to as the Burrard Street Bridge) is a five-lane, Art Deco style, steel truss bridge constructed in 1930-1932 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The high, five part bridge on four piers spans False Creek, connecting downtown Vancouver with Kitsilano via connections to Burrard Street on both ends. It is one of three bridges crossing False Creek. The other two bridges are the Granville Bridge, three blocks or 0.5 km (0.31 mi) to the southeast, and the Cambie Street Bridge, about 11 blocks or 2 km (1.2 mi) to the east. In addition to the vehicle deck, the Burrard Bridge has sidewalks on both sides, 2.6 m (8 ft 6 in) wide, shared by pedestrians and cyclists.

The architect of the Burrard Bridge was George Lister Thornton Sharp, the engineer John R. Grant. The bridge's two close approach spans are Warren trusses placed below deck level, while its central span is a Pratt truss placed above deck level to allow greater clearance height for ships passing underneath. The central truss is hidden when crossing the bridge in either direction by vertical extensions of the bridge's masonry piers into imposing concrete towers, connected by overhead galleries, which are embellished with architectural and sculptural details that create a torch-like entrance of pylons. Busts of Captain George Vancouver and Sir Harry Burrard-Neale in ship prows jut from the bridge’s superstructure (a V under Vancouver’s bust, a B under Burrard’s).

Unifying the long approaches and the distinctive central span are heavy concrete railings, originally topped with decorative street lamps. These pierced handrails were designed as a kind of visual shutter (stroboscopic effect), so that at a speed of 50 km/h motorists would see through them with an uninterrupted view of the harbour. The effect works at speeds from about 40 to 64 km/h.

History

File:Burrard Bridge 1940s.jpg

Burrard Bridge in 1940s, with original street lamps.

The Burrard Bridge, opened July 1, 1932, was built to provide a high-level crossing from Vancouver to the southwestern neighbourhoods in Kitsilano, by connecting Burrard Street to Cedar Street. After completion, Burrard was extended through to the base of downtown and Cedar Street disappeared.

A snip of a pair of golden scissors in the hands of Mayor Louis D. Taylor, and Vancouver's $3 million Burrard Bridge was opened to the public Friday afternoon, July 1 ... Hardly was the ribbon cut in front of the devouring eyes of movie cameras, then thousands of pedestrians and hundreds of cars surged across the magnificent white structure in a procession of triumph, celebrating another step in Vancouver's progress

— Unknown news report

At the opening ceremony, entertainment was provided by two bands, the Kitsilano Boy's Band and the Fireman's Band. An RCAF seaplane flew under the bridge and later a sugar replica of the bridge was unveiled at the civic reception in the Hotel Vancouver.

G.L. Thornton Sharp, of Sharp and Thompson, was the architect responsible for the distinctive towers on the bridge and its middle galleries. "Both central piers," Sharp told a reporter, "were designed and connected with an overhead gallery across the road. This helped to mask the network of steel in the truss from the two approaches, and has been treated as an entrance gateway to the city." Along their other axis, the full height of the piers above the water also serve to frame a sea entrance gateway, notably for pleasure craft: "by sea and land we prosper". The piers have provision for a rapid transit vertical lift span beneath the highway deck, never installed.

As a tribute to Canadian World War I prisoners of war, who huddled around open fires in their prison camps, John Grant had the idea to install huge lamps at both ends of the span. For placement of the lamps:.

Proposed bicycle lanes or widening

When originally constructed, the Burrard Bridge did not have dedicated lanes for cyclists, who shared the bridge's six vehicle lanes with motorists. Later, as traffic volume grew and speed limits were increased on the bridge to 60 km/h, cyclists were directed to share the bridge's sidewalks with pedestrians. Over time, the volume of pedestrians and cyclists on the 2.6 m (8 ft 6 in) sidewalks has created a dangerous situation, with several accidents having occurred resulting in at least one successful lawsuit against the city.

Since the mid 1990's, the city of Vancouver has investigated various options to rectify the situation. The two most prominent options are to 1) introduce bicycle lanes on the bridge's vehicle deck by reallocating one or more vehicle lanes, and 2) build horizontal extensions on the outside of the bridge to create additional sidewalk space. Other options include building an entirely new pedestrian and/or cyclist only bridge, and building another deck on the bridge below the existing deck.

Heritage advocates are strongly opposed to the construction of outside sidewalk extensions, as this would likely significantly alter the historical character of the bridge. Fiscal conservatives are also opposed to the high cost associated with this option.

Many motorists and others are opposed to the reallocation of vehicle lanes to bicycle lanes, believing that the reduction in vehicle carrying capacity would create excessive traffic problems both on the bridge and on and around alternate crossings, such as the Granville Street Bridge.

Timeline

Beginning March 26, 1996, in a six month trial by the City, one commuter lane was closed to automobile traffic and made into a temporary cyclist lane. However after one week, the City was forced to revert the lane to its original purpose, due to outrage by some motorists.

On May 31, 2005, a detailed engineering and planning report was presented to Council, reviewing the situation broadly, presenting alternatives, and offering recommendations. (Its computer visualizations of various proposals [esp. pp. 8–12--notably p. 8--and Appendix E] are indispensable illustrations to the discussion. See )

That day Vancouver City Council voted 10-1 not to follow the recommendations of the report, but to reallocate the two curb-side lanes to cyclists for another trial, as part of Council's plan to increase cycling in Vancouver by 10% for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

The issue was carried into the municipal election of November 19, 2005.

On December 20, 2005 the newly elected Council voted 6-4 to cancel the lane reallocation trial and to proceed directly to widening the bridge sidewalks as promised in that election.

East (city) pylon with decorations, masking steel through-truss; six traffic lanes, pedestrian arches, concrete railings

In 2006, the City considered removing the concrete railings and widening the bridge deck by outward ('outrigger') sidewalks, at projected cost of over $40 million. (See p. 8 of ) To preserve the bridge's heritage value, such cantilevered structures would not include the bridge's central piers, or towers. Critics of this plan argued that the resulting "pinch points" would defeat the purpose of widening the bridge by creating bottlenecks, through which a greater number of cyclists, skaters and pedestrians must pass over coming decades.

For the third consecutive year, in 2008 Heritage Vancouver listed the Burrard Bridge first on its Top Ten endangered sites in Vancouver. It had ranked fourth in 2005.

Sidewalk expansion was delayed by the Squamish First Nation, which controls the land directly under the south (or west) side of the bridge. For construction to begin, the city would require permission from this group, which has expressed concern that machinery working on the site may affect their land.

The Squamish First Nation also plans to erect advertising billboards on their properties, located at that bridge approach, as well as similar properties by the Lions' Gate Bridge and the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing.

Oblique view from northwest (Kitsilano) quadrant, showing existing change of line between central and approach spans, relative to deck grade-level, 'outrigger', cantilevered widening plan

In a late April 2008 report to Council, city engineers raised est. cost of widening to $57 million, due to reconsideration regarding additional weight to the existing bridge structure and rising construction costs. $61 million was set as a more likely figure.

In Nov. 2008 the current Council, which advocated widening the bridge, was defeated and replaced by a new mayor and Council opposed to the widening but supportive of lane reallocation from vehicles to cyclists. In late January 2009, in an economic downtown and anticipating the 2010 Winter Olympics, the City announced plans for trials of three kinds of auto traffic lane closings, allowing bicycle use of the road surface. This would be supplemented by safety upgrades.

In March 2009, the City of Vancouver delayed discussing the Burrard Bridge Bike Lane Trial at least one month. [5]. Council rescheduled meeting to May 5, 2009 to discuss the three kinds of possible trials, to begin summer 2009, were one approved.

On May 7, 2009, Council approved a motion to proceed with option 3 of the proposed trials, to begin in June 2009. The proposed trial began on July 13th. It saw see the southbound motor vehicle curb lane and the northbound-side sidewalk allocated to bicycles, and the southbound-side sidewalk allocated to pedestrians. The reassigned lane was separated from motor vehicles by a physical barrier.

Photos of the bridge

• The bridge and part of the Westend
  The bridge and part of the Westend
• 
  Burrard Bridge at night
• 
  View of Kitsilano and central spans of Burrard Bridge, from dock level, marina, southwest quadrant
• 
  Vanier Park view (nw quadrant) of Bridge, showing: debated elevation appearance, proximity to downtown and to Granville Street Bridge beyond-Photo PM
• 
  The bridge shrouded in a cool winter sunrise fog.

See also

• Burrard Street
• List of bridges in Canada

External links

• Burrard Street Bridge at Structurae
• Bridges of Vancouver Pictures of Burrard Bridge
• The History of Metropolitan Vancouver
• Heritage Vancouver
• KatKam Webcam of Burrard Bridge