Saturday, June 19, 2010

Cable-Stayed Bridges - Golden Ears Bridge



The City of Vancouver is laced with waterways and so there is a need to connect the bodies of land between them. Consequently, Vancouver has a lot of bridges and probably more cable-stayed bridges than any other city.


The Golden Ears Bridge is a five span hybrid cable-stayed structure. Some have called it an extradosed bridge, but a true extradosed bridge carries dead load with its cables and live load with deeper girders. 


This bridge was designed by Buckland and Taylor and completed in 2009. It has a continuous, 2370 ft long composite steel girder superstructure. There are three equal main spans of 800 ft and two side spans of 400 ft. It crosses the Fraser River just east of Barnston Island. It's name is taken from the twin peaks of Mount Blanshard (seen in the background) which apparently has a golden glow at sunset. It also comes from 'Golden Eyries' and so the bridge towers are decorated with eagles. 


We'll take a closer look at this interesting bridge tomorrow.
Creative Commons License

No comments: