Saint John Harbour Bridge
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The Saint John Harbour Bridge is three-span crossing of
Saint John Harbour Saint John Harbour is a large Harbour#Natural harbors, natural harbour on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of New Brunswick, Canada, and within the seaport city of Saint John, New Brunswick. Harbour description The harbour includes the follo ...
at the mouth of the Saint John River in Saint John,
New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...
,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
. It opened in 1968.


History

By the mid-20th century, the rate of industrial and residential growth in Saint John and surrounding communities necessitated a second bridge over the Saint John River. The old Reversing Falls Bridge was adequate for handling the post-War traffic growth; however public concerns about where to build a new highway and bridge frustrated the idea for many years. On May 1, 1961 the city's Common Council appointed a 6-member citizens' committee which then directed various studies and discussions. Ultimately, the bridge was built as a cooperative project between the federal, provincial and municipal governments. They decided to purchase the majority of the Mill Street Yard from the
Canadian Pacific Railway The Canadian Pacific Railway (french: Chemin de fer Canadien Pacifique) , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadi ...
for a new highway alignment which would run through the middle of the city downstream of Reversing Falls. The federally controlled
National Harbours Board The National Harbours Board was an agency of the Government of Canada, reporting to Parliament through the Minister of Transport. It was in operation from 1936 to 1983. History The idea of a system of national ports was mooted as early as 1905, whe ...
(now Ports Canada) would build the bridge. Part of this deal involved the NHB collecting a 25¢ toll in each direction. Under the original act prevented any toll increase or forty years without federal, provincial and municipal agreement. . The selected location remains controversial as it prevents high-clearance vessels from navigating into the upper part of the Saint John Harbour. Construction of the bridge also drew to a close the status of
Navy Island Navy Island is a small, uninhabited island in the Niagara River in the province of Ontario, managed by Parks Canada as a National Historic Site of Canada. It is located about upstream from Horseshoe Falls, and has an area of roughly . It is acr ...
as an island within the Inner Harbour and resulted in the demolition of the historic neo-
gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
Union Station. Earlier proposals had called for the Saint John Throughway and the bridge to be built north of the
Reversing Falls The Reversing Falls are a series of rapids on the Saint John River located in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, where the river runs through a narrow gorge before emptying into the Bay of Fundy. The semidiurnal tides of the bay force the flow ...
gorge.


Design and capacity

Saint John Harbour Bridge was designed and built as a hollow box, haunched girder structure. It carries four lanes of traffic across 3 spans, measuring , , and . Contracts for the four main piers were signed in September 1965 and the crossing opened on August 17, 1968 as part of the ambitious
Saint John Throughway Route 1 is a highway in the southern part of the Canadian province of New Brunswick. It begins in the west from the Canada–United States border at St. Stephen, and runs east for to Route 2 at River Glade. The entire highway is a 4-lane cont ...
project. Tolls were set at 25 cents when the bridge was constructed. The Harbour Bridge Authority increased the cash-toll from $0.25 to $0.50 for regular commuter traffic beginning January, 2007. This is the first, and only, permitted rate increase since the bridge was built; however, by 2010, the tolls were eliminated, and the building later demolished.


Transfer of authority

Meanwhile, by 2010, more than forty years after the bridge was built, it was in need of more than $35 million worth of repairs. Without the necessary repairs, the Harbour Bridge Authority warned it would need to close two lanes of traffic and impose weight restrictions on the bridge, threatening to inhibit traffic flow during commute times as well as posing as a problem to transports coming to and from the bordering state of Maine, USA. The three levels of government negotiating the project's financing. On November 26, 2010
Stephen Harper Stephen Joseph Harper (born April 30, 1959) is a Canadian politician who served as the 22nd prime minister of Canada from 2006 to 2015. Harper is the first and only prime minister to come from the modern-day Conservative Party of Canada, ...
and
David Alward David Nathan Alward (born December 2, 1959) is a Canadian politician, who served as the 32nd premier of New Brunswick, 2010 to 2014. Alward has been a member of the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick since 1999 and has been the leader of the P ...
announced an agreement. It eliminated the toll and wiped away a $22.6 million debt, while the
Federal Government A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governin ...
agreed to pay for half of the $35 million structural repairs. The Bridge Authority was abolished and management of the bridge was placed under the New Brunswick Department of Transportation and Infrastructure. In 2013, the Department announced that it had sold the office building formerly used by the Bridge Authority to the Saint John Port Authority.


See also

*
List of bridges in Canada This is a list of bridges and viaducts in Canada, including those for pedestrians and vehicular traffic. Historical and architectural interest bridges There are only a few covered bridges left in Canada compared to all those that were built in t ...


References

{{coord, 45, 15, 59.4, N, 66, 4, 27.5, W, display=title Road bridges in New Brunswick Bridges over the Saint John River (Bay of Fundy) Bridges completed in 1968 Transport in Saint John, New Brunswick Buildings and structures in Saint John, New Brunswick Former toll bridges in Canada