Burrard Bridge
The Burrard Street Bridge (49°16′31.9″N 123°8′12″W / 49.275528°N 123.13667°W) is an art deco, six lane bridge in Vancouver, British Columbia that spans False Creek connecting downtown to Kitsilano. The bridge is embellished with imposing concrete towers, torch-like entrance-pylons, and sculptural details. Unifying the parts are heavy concrete railings, originally topped by decorative street lamps. Busts of Captain George Vancouver and Harry Burrard jut out from the bridge’s superstructure (a V under Vancouver’s bust, a B under Burrard’s).
- Architect: G.H. Thornton Sharp
- Engineer: John R. Grant
History
Opened July 1, 1932, the Burrard Street Bridge was built to provide a high-level crossing to the south-western neighbourhoods in Kitsilano. The bridge connected Burrard Street to Cedar Street in the south. Burrard was simply extended 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.
On opening day the Kitsilano Boy's Band played as so did the Fireman's Band, an RCAF seaplane also flew under the bridge, and later, at a civic reception in the Hotel Vancouver, a replica of the bridge made of sugar was unveiled.
The architect (of the concrete version) was G.L. Thornton Sharp, of Sharp and Thompson. It was Sharp who was responsible for the most noticeable physical feature of the bridge, the galleries in the middle. "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."
The bridge piers have provision for a rapid transit vertical lift span beneath the highway deck, but it was never installed.
The bridge today
On March 26, 1996, the City closed one of six lanes to cars and opened it to cyclists. [1] It was a trial that was meant to extend over a period of six months. However, as city staff later recognised, the trial was poorly presented to the public, and motorist confusion and outrage forced the Council to abandon the trial after a week.
On 19 July, 2005, council voted 10-1 [2] to reallocate two curb-side traffic lanes on the six-lane Burrard Bridge to bicycles on a trial basis. This was a part of council's plan to increase cycle use in Vancouver to 10% by the 2010 Olympic games.
The trial was slated to begin in April 2006, giving staff adequate time to plan for the initiative and ensure that the public were better prepared for the changeover than a decade earlier. The bike lane experiment was to be assessed by staff at six-month and one-year intervals. Staff was advised to proceed, while the trial was ongoing, with drawing up plans for widening the bridge's sidewalks, so that in the event that the lane reallocation experiment failed council could go ahead with upgrading the bridge with minimal delay. The trial went against City staff recommendations to spend an estimated $13 million to widen the sidewalk on both sides of the Burrard Bridge.
The Burrard Bridge solution was hailed as a brilliant and visionary compromise by councillors for a long, and fraught issue. The experiment dangled the possiblity of keeping all stakeholders happy, by ensuring the safety of cyclists and pedestrians, protecting the heritage value of the bridge, and avoiding the major expense of widening the bridge at a time of escalating construction costs.
However, motorists felt aggrieved at the plan. NPA councillors said their constituents didn't understand that it was only a trial and used confusion over the Burrard Bridge proposal to successfully shore up their support in the municipal election of November 19, 2005.
On December 20, 2005, the newly elected city council voted 6-4 [3] to cancel the lane reallocation experiment and proceed directly to widening the bridge sidewalks, as promised during the November 19, 2005, election campaign.
To facilitate cyclist and pedestrian use, the City is considering demolition of the concrete railings and the addition of 'outrigger' sidewalks. Without the original railings, its architectural features will be isolated and the proposed outrigger structures will radically alter the external appearance of this landmark structure.
As a concession to the bridge's heritage value, the outrigger sidewalk is unlikely to be widened around the bridge's central buttresses. Critics have said that these so-called "pinch points" defeat the purpose of widening the bridge by creating bottlenecks through which a greater number of cyclists and pedestrians must pass over coming decades.
Heritage Vancouver listed the Burrard Bridge as number four on their 2005 Top Ten endangered sites in Vancouver, and number one their 2006 list [4], mainly because of the sidewalk widening issue. Heritage Vancouver has sent a letter to the City of Vancouver requesting further review on the issue.
The sidewalk expansion has also been delayed by the Squamish First Nation, which controls the land directly under the south side of the bridge. For the construction to begin, the city requires the permission of the band. The Chief, Gibby Jacob, expresses concern that machinery working on the site may have an impact on the land.
Statistics
- Persons cross per hour: 8,000 - 9,000 (peak times)
- Lone drivers: 49%
- Car poolers: 21%
- Transit riders: 21%
- Cyclists: 5%
- Walkers: 4%
See also
References
- The Vancouver Sun
- The History of Metropolitan Vancouver
- Heritage Vancouver
- Burrard Bridge battle not over yet from CBC
External links
- Bridges of Vancouver Pictures of Burrard Street Bridge
- Katkam.ca A webcam of the Bridge
