Great Britain: West India Quay Footbridge (3)

I wanted to write one more blog to say goodbye to Canary Wharf. My closing shot is from the deck of the West India Quay Footbridge. There are many more interesting bridges in the area than I had time to photograph.

The Happy Pontist said the developers of Canary Wharf had too much freedom, resulting in a 'dog's dinner' with an occasional nicely designed bridge. That was also my impression from the afternoon I spent walking around.

Great Britain: West India Quay Footbridge (3) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Great Britain: Docklands Pontoon Bridge

I'm probably giving this bridge the wrong name, but since it no longer exists, it may not matter. Pontoon (floating) bridges are often used as temporary structures and so perhaps it had served its purpose. It's not as fancy as the nearby West India Quay Footbridge which has been compared to a 'water skater insect' due to its visual grace. This bridge looks more like a utilitarian platform to get pedestrians across a channel in Canary Wharf.

The pontoons are big, flat metal boxes with cables to keep them in place. The superstructure is attached to the pontoons with tubular steel members arranged in a 'W' shape. The superstructure has a deeper section at midspan supported by little cable-stayed towers over the pontoons.  The approach spans are supported by simple through trusses. My son Aaron can be seen in this photo standing on the deck.

Pontoon structures are an interesting class of bridges. They are a good idea in theory, but they sometimes have problems in practice. The first recorded use of a pontoon bridge was in China in the 11th century B.C. They are often used by the military as a quick way to get across a river. The Persians apparently liked them and built famous pontoon bridges to pursue the Greeks across the Bosporus and across the Hellespont. Usually they are carried by an army and removed after they have crossed (to make it harder for the enemy to follow). My experience with them was occasionally driving on the Lake Washington Floating Bridge in Seattle before it sank during a storm in 1990.

Great Britain: Docklands Pontoon Bridge by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

Great Britain: West India Quay Footbridge (2)

Another look at the West India Quay Footbridge. It's hard to imagine this area when it was mostly ships and warehouses for the distribution of sugar and rum from the West Indies (a chain of Caribbean Islands that includes earthquake-ravaged Haiti). Columbus thought he had found a new route to Southeast Asia and so they called the region the West Indies after they realized his mistake.

The Happy Pontist correctly stated that the bridge pontoons are anchored to the channel bottom. This area is affected by tidal currents so the anchorage must keep the bridge from lifting off the quays during high tide.  He also correctly named this bridge. I was originally reluctant to give the proper name because I didn't know if I would be able to continue to do so for all the bridges around Canary Wharf.

Great Britain: West India Quay Footbridge (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Great Britain: West India Quay Footbridge (1)

A few months ago, we looked at bridges that cross the Thames River west of London. It's an idyllic area with pretty towns that have a rural feel.

The east side of London north of the Thames used to be filled with busy ports that are now closed. A lot of money went into converting this area into a financial center to rival London, but with mixed results due to the volatile economy during the past 20 years.

This area (called Canary Wharf) has a lot of pretty footbridges to carry people across the channels where ships loaded with goods used to travel. I think the developers must have encouraged the bridge engineers to be innovative in the design of these little bridges.

For instance, this pontoon bridge looks like it can be taken apart and reassembled wherever it might be needed. Each module is composed of two air-filled barrels with X-braced four-legged piers supporting a tubular superstructure and a rubber deck. The ends of the bridge are supported by the quay walls on each side of the channel. More information on this bridge can be obtained from the website that the designers (Anthony Hunt and Future Systems) created.

Canary Wharf is in the middle of the big downward bend in the Thames River shown in the Google Earth Photo above. We will look at some of the other bridges in this area over the next few days.

Great Britain: West India Quay Footbridge (1) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.