lew bridge b

Drivers will rive
over a temporary
deck during work

Kevin Gillies
News Reporter

LOVE her or hate her, the
de dame of Vancouver’s sense

historic landmarks will remain

so well into the next century.

Lions Gate Bridge spans the 500-
metre (1,640-f.) entrance to North
America’s largest West Coast port and
Vancouver's history from the depres-
sion era of the Dirty Thirties to the
new millennium and beyond. '
“Ir is, in a lot of people’s minds, an as
integral part of Vancouver's land- :

Maruny

scape,” said Geoff Freer of the B.C. ee

. Transportation Finance Authority.
“When you look at the Neth Shore
mountains, if you're in the right loca-
tion, you see this beautiful suspension
bridge. I think most of us, in our
hearts, are glad that we're going to
have this great looking suspension bridge in our harbour.”

Starting January the bridge’s deck will be removed, piece by
picce, and replaced to extend Lions Gate’s life another 70 years.
American Bricige-Surespan was awarded an $86.5 million con-
tract this month to replace the deck and give the bridge and north
viaduct a complete seismic upgrade. With extras, including
improvements to the Stanley Park causeway, the cost is $100 mil-
lion.

“This will be the first time that everything except the suspen-
sion cables on a bridge has been replaced all at the same time,”
Freer said. The procedure itself is innovative, although it was used
in 1975 to replace sections of the bridge’s north viaduct, which is
a separate structure. : .

“Basically a temporary deck section will be installed that will
become an integral part of the existing bridge,” said Freer. “That
temporary bridge section will be about 15 centimetres higher
than the existing deck. So you'll drive on the bridge and you'll
drive up a little ramp onto this temporary bridge section and then
at the other end you'll drive off the ramp and onto the existing

deck.”

THE SUSPENDED

THE OLD BRIDGE

‘The new deck will be supported by
longitudinal stiffening trusses.

north shore news

UNDAY FOCUS

y bit

The temporary deck will allow workers
ro get under the bridge and remove 10-
metre (32-ft.) or 20 m (64-ft.) sections
of the old bridge deck. Those sections
will be lowered by cable onto a barge. A
new section will be connected to the
cables and raised. The new sections will
be bolted into place and then welded.
“Then when that piece is done they will
then move the temporary deck section
along and they'll work their way across
the bridge doing that,” Freer said.
It was in 1938 when that very deck was
the last major bridge component, hoist-
ed up from barges in the water below to
complete the bridge’s construction at a
cost of $5.7 million. The then-two-lane
bridge was erected by businessman
fotars AJ.T. Taylor and the Guinness family
to access their vast undeveloped land
holdings in West Vancouver — the
wes British Properties.
The provincial government bought the
span for just under $6 million in 1955
and by 1990 it was handling 25 million
vehicles a year, one of the highest
counts in the world for a bridge of its
configuration.
Major renovations in 1959, 1963, 1974
and 1975, couldn't prevent heavy use,
salt water and old age fromi taking its toll. A falling piece of the
bridge led to a 1993 report which said the deck was past its 50-
year life span and no longer safe.

Six years of studies and discussion resulted in the May 22,
198 decision to replace the deck, but with sidewalks on the out-
si fe of the towers instead of inside as they are currently placed.
The American Bridge-Surespan consortium has until July 30 to
formulate a traffic management plan and a communications plan.
Both must be approved by the B.C. government and will formu-
late the official project schedule. The whole project will include:
B rehabilitation of the Stanley Park causeway starting this sum-
mer, Single-lane night closures will be needed;

@ the bridge deck replacement starting in January 2000. Less
than 40 night-time closures are anticipated before the new deck is
in place by August 2000. Included are three weekend closures (10
p.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Monday), nvo Sunday closures (10 p.m.
Saturday to 6 am. Monday) and several weeknight closures (8
p.m. to 6 a.m., once or twice a week );

B scismic upgrading in the spring and summer of 2000 will take
place under the deck and not cause any bridge closures.

Mdeweia,

Sunday, May 23, 1999 — North Shore News - 3

Bridge history trivia

QO Number of years to gain approval for a first bridge: 46.
The first proposal for a bridge across the Firsr Narrows was
in 1890.

QO Number of years to gain plan approval for the Lions
Gate Bridge: four. Plans to build the existing bridge began
in 1933 and were not approved until 1936.

Q Construction time: 18 months.

Q Total suspended weight over the First Narrows: 6,340
tons.

Q Weight of foundation structural steel: 133 tons.

Q Toral length of all the wire used in the bridge cables:
7,647 kilometres (4,750 miles),

O Paint used prior to opening: 22,700 litres (5,000 gallons).
QO Concrete in the project: 38,000 cu. m (50,000 cubic
yards).

O Bridge buile by: the First Narrows Bridge Company with
engineering provided by Monsarrat and Pratley of
Montreal and Swan Wooster Engineering of Vancouver

Q Cost of construction, including the causeway and
approaches: $5,700,000.

Q Price paid to The First Narrows Bridge Company by the
provincial government in 1955: $5,500,000.

O Length of the suspended span of the bridge between the
nwo towers: 1,550 feer. Total length of the bridge includ-
ing the north viaduct is 5,978 feet.

Q Height above Burrard Inlet: 60 m (200 feet).

O Speed limit on the bridge in 1938 was 25 m.p.h.

QO) Number of lanes on bridge originally: two. It was con-
‘verted to three narrow lanes in 1952. Lane control signals
were installed in 1965 to allow reversible traffic on the cen-
tre lane.

O Average number of vehicle trips over the bridge today:
between 60,000 and 70,000.

Q Vehicle weight limit on the bridge: 13,000 kg.

O The main cables were illuminated with 192 ornamental
mercury vapor lamps in 1986, a gift from the Guinness
family of brewing fame who helped finance the original
construction.

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