Royal Alexandra Interprovincial Bridge - Ottawa, Ontario
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denben
N 45° 25.795 W 075° 42.232
18T E 444940 N 5030951
The Royal Alexandra Interprovincial Bridge is a steel truss cantilever bridge spanning the Ottawa River between Ottawa, Ontario and Gatineau, Québec.
Waymark Code: WMZE03
Location: Ontario, Canada
Date Posted: 10/27/2018
Views: 7
The Alexandra bridge was constructed by the Canadian Pacific Railway between 1898 and 1900. It was designed primarily to carry CPR trains but also had a track for local electric trolley service between Ottawa and Hull, as well as a lane for carriage traffic. During the late 1950s the bridge was upgraded to carry vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The closure of Ottawa Union Station in 1966 saw the last passenger trains use the Royal Alexandra Bridge and the railway tracks were removed as the bridge became exclusively a vehicular-pedestrian bridge.
The Canadian Society for Civil Engineering designated the Alexandra bridge a National Historic Civil Engineering Site in June 1995. It was owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway until it was taken over by the National Capital Commission in 1970. It is now (2018) owned by the Government of Canada and maintained by Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC).
The bridge now provides an important commuter link between Ottawa and Gatineau. The roadways for vehicles are located on the centre and east decks. Centre deck road surface is paved while the east deck is a metal steel grating.
The west deck provides a panorama of the Ottawa-Gatineau skyline, the Ottawa River and Parliament Buildings. That deck is used by rollerbladers, cyclists, and pedestrians, and is on the official route of the Trans Canada Trail.
At both ends of the bridge are two major museums. In the Gatineau side of the river is the Canadian Museum of History while on the Ottawa side is the National Art Gallery. On each end of the bridge are two major parks : Major's Hill Park (Ottawa) and Jacques Cartier Park (Gatineau) two major venues of the Canadian Tulip Festival and the Canada Day festivities.
Each day the bridge carries roughly 15,000 vehicles, 2000 pedestrians and 1300 cyclists, as of 2009.
Specifications
Type: truss bridge with five spans
Length: 563.27 m (1,848 ft)
Width: 18.89 m (62 ft)
Height of tower posts: 28.95 m (95 ft)
Length of main cantilever span: 172.21 m (556 ft)
Source: Wikipedia (
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