Burrard Bridge

About

The Burrard Bridge (officially the Burrard Street Bridge) is a four-lane, Art Deco style, steel truss bridge constructed between 1930 and 1932 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The high, five-part bridge on four piers spans False Creek, connecting downtown Vancouver with Kitsilano via connections to Burrard Street (formerly Cedar Street south of False Creek) on both ends. It is one of three bridges crossing False Creek. The other two bridges are the Granville Street Bridge, 0.5 kilometres (0.31 mi) to the southeast, and the Cambie Bridge, about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) to the east. In addition to the vehicle deck, the Burrard Bridge has 2.6 m (8 ft 6 in) wide sidewalks and a dedicated cycling lanes on both sides.

The architect of the Burrard Street Bridge was George Lister Thornton Sharp, the engineer John R. Grant. The bridge's two close approach spans are Warren trusses placed below deck level, while its central span is a Pratt truss placed above deck level to allow greater clearance height for ships passing underneath. The central truss is hidden when crossing the bridge in either direction by vertical extensions of the bridge's masonry piers into imposing concrete towers, connected...

The Burrard Street Bridge, opened July 1, 1932, was built to provide a high-level crossing from Vancouver to the southwestern neighbourhoods in Kitsilano, by connecting Burrard Street to Cedar Street. After completion, Burrard was extended through to the base of downtown and Cedar Street disappeared.

A snip of a pair of golden scissors in the hands of Mayor Louis D. Taylor, and Vancouver's $3 million Burrard Street Bridge was opened to the public Friday afternoon, July 1... Hardly was the ribbon cut in front of the devouring eyes of movie cameras, then thousands of pedestrians and hundreds of cars surged across the magnificent white structure in a procession of triumph, celebrating another step in Vancouver's progress

At the opening ceremony, entertainment was provided by two bands, the Kitsilano Boy's Band and the Fireman's Band. An RCAF seaplane flew under the bridge and later a sugar replica of the bridge was unveiled at the civic reception in the Hotel Vancouver.

G.L. Thornton Sharp, of Sharp and Thompson, was the architect responsible for the distinctive towers on the bridge and its middle galleries. "Both central piers," Sharp told a reporter, "were designed and connected with an overhead gallery across the road. This helped to mask the network of steel in the truss from the two approaches, and has been treated as an entrance gateway to the city." Along their other axis, the full height of the piers above the water also serve to frame a sea entrance gateway, notably for pleasure craft: "by sea and land we prosper". The piers have provision for a rapid transit vertical lift span beneath the highway deck, never installed.

Burrard Street Bridge has been assessed by heritage consultants retained by the City of Vancouver as being in the top category of historic buildings in Vancouver. The bridge appeared on a stamp issued by Canada Post in 2011, in a series showcasing five notable Art Deco structures in Canada.

When constructed, the Burrard Street Bridge did not have dedicated lanes for cyclists, who shared the bridge's six vehicle lanes with motorists. Later, as traffic volume grew and speed limits were increased on the bridge to 60 km/h, cyclists were directed to share the bridge's sidewalks with pedestrians. Over time, the volume of pedestrians and cyclists on the 2.6 m (8 ft 6 in) sidewalks created a dangerous situation, with several accidents occurring, which resulted in at least one successful lawsuit against the city.

Since the mid-1990s, the city of Vancouver has investigated various options to rectify the situation. The two most prominent options were 1) to introduce bicycle lanes on the bridge's vehicle deck by reallocating one or more vehicle lanes, and 2) to build horizontal extensions on the outside of the bridge to create additional sidewalk space. Other options have included building an entirely new pedestrian and/or cyclist only bridge, and building another deck on the bridge below the existing deck.

Heritage advocates have been strongly opposed to the construction of outside sidewalk extensions, which would likely alter significantly the historical character of the bridge. Fiscal conservatives have also been opposed to high costs associated with this option.

Many motorists and others opposed reallocation of vehicle lanes to bicycle lanes, believing that the reduction in vehicle carrying capacity would create excessive traffic problems both on the bridge and on and around alternate crossings, such as the Granville Street Bridge, but this has not occurred. As of 2023, the bike lanes are some of the busiest in North America.

Beginning March 26, 1996, in a six-month trial by the City, one commuter lane was closed to automobile traffic and made into a temporary cycling lane. However, after one week, the City was forced to revert the lane to its original purpose, due to outrage by some motorists.

On May 31, 2005, a detailed engineering and planning report was presented to Council, reviewing the situation broadly, presenting alternatives, and offering recommendations. (Its computer visualizations of various proposals [esp. pp. 8–12—notably p. 8—and Appendix E] are indispensable illustrations to the discussion. See )

That day Vancouver City Council voted 10–1 not to follow the recommendations of the report, but to reallocate the two curb-side lanes to cyclists for another trial, as part of Council's plan to increase cycling in Vancouver by 10 percent for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

The issue was carried into the municipal election of November 19, 2005.

On December 20, 2005, the newly elected Council voted 6-4 to cancel the lane reallocation trial and to proceed directly to widening the bridge sidewalks as promised in that election.

In 2006, the City considered removing the concrete railings and widening the bridge deck by outward ('outrigger') sidewalks, at projected cost of over $40 million. (See p. 8 of ) To preserve the bridge's heritage value, such cantilevered structures would not include the bridge's central piers, or towers. Critics of this plan argued that the resulting "pinch points" would defeat the purpose of widening the bridge by creating bottlenecks, through which a greater number of cyclists, skaters and pedestrians must pass over coming decades.

For the third consecutive year, in 2008 Heritage Vancouver listed the Burrard Bridge first on its Top Ten endangered sites in Vancouver. It had ranked fourth in 2005.

Sidewalk expansion was delayed by the Squamish First Nation, which controls the land directly under the south (or west) side of the bridge. For construction to begin, the city would require permission from this group, which has expressed concern that machinery working on the site may affect their land.

The Squamish First Nation erected advertising billboards on their properties, located at that bridge approach, and is proposing the same for similar properties by the Lions' Gate Bridge and the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing.