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The Saint John Harbour Bridge is three-span crossing of Saint John Harbour at the mouth of the Saint John River in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. It opened in 1968.
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 for a new highway alignment which would run through the middle of the city downstream of Reversing Falls. The federally controlled National Harbours Board (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 for 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 as an island within the Inner Harbour and resulted in the demolition of the historic neo-gothic Union Station. Earlier proposals had called for the Saint John Throughway and the bridge to be built north of the Reversing Falls gorge.
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 125 metres (410 ft), 250 metres (820 ft), and 125 metres (410 ft). 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 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.
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. [1]
The three levels of government negotiating the project's financing. On November 26, 2010 Stephen Harper and David Alward announced an agreement. It eliminated the toll and wiped away a $22.6 million debt, while the Federal Government agreed to pay for half of the $35 million structural repairs. [2]
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. [3]
Saint John is a seaport city located on the Bay of Fundy in the province of New Brunswick, Canada. It is Canada's oldest incorporated city, established by royal charter on May 18, 1785, during the reign of George III. The port is Canada's third-largest by tonnage with a cargo base that includes dry and liquid bulk, break bulk, containers, and cruise. The city has a strong industrial base, including oil refining and manufacturing, matched with finance and tourism sectors and research institutions such as the New Brunswick Museum and the University of New Brunswick. Saint John was the most populous in New Brunswick until the 2016 census, when it was overtaken by Moncton. It is currently the second-largest city in the province, with a population of 69,895 over an area of 315.59 km2 (121.85 sq mi).
The Bay of Fundy is a bay between the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, with a small portion touching the U.S. state of Maine. It is an arm of the Gulf of Maine. Its tidal range is the highest in the world. The name is probably a corruption of the French word fendu, meaning 'split'.
The Confederation Bridge is a box girder bridge carrying the Trans-Canada Highway across the Abegweit Passage of the Northumberland Strait, linking the province of Prince Edward Island with the mainland province of New Brunswick. Opened May 31, 1997, the 12.9-kilometre (8.0 mi) bridge is Canada's longest bridge and the world's longest bridge over ice-covered water.
Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport is a regional airport located on the Toronto Islands in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is often referred to as Toronto Island Airport and was previously known as Port George VI Island Airport and Toronto City Centre Airport. The airport's name honours Billy Bishop, the Canadian World War I flying ace and World War II Air Marshal. It is used by civil aviation, air ambulances, and regional airlines using turboprop planes. In 2022, it was ranked Canada's ninth-busiest airport.
Route 1 is a highway in the southern part of the Canadian province of New Brunswick. It begins west of the Canada–United States border at St. Stephen, and runs east for 239.11 kilometres (148.58 mi) to Route 2 at River Glade.
The Sydney Harbour Tunnel is a twin-tube road tunnel in Sydney, Australia. The tunnel was completed and opened to traffic in August 1992 to provide a second vehicular crossing of Sydney Harbour to alleviate congestion on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It is one of two transportation tunnels under the harbour, the other being a set of rail tunnels for the Sydney Metro.
The Champlain Bridge was a steel truss cantilever bridge with approach viaducts constructed of prestressed concrete beams supporting a prestressed concrete deck paved with asphalt. Opened in 1962, the bridge crossed the Saint Lawrence River, connecting the Island of Montreal to its South Shore suburbs.
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.
Route 2 is a major provincial highway in the Canadian province of New Brunswick, carrying the main route of the Trans-Canada Highway in the province. The highway connects with Autoroute 85 at the border with Quebec and Highway 104 at the border with Nova Scotia, as well as with traffic from Interstate 95 in the U.S. state of Maine via the short Route 95 connector. A core route in the National Highway System, Route 2 is a four-lane freeway in its entirety, and directly serves the cities of Edmundston, Fredericton, and Moncton.
Coastal Transport Limited is a ferry company operating in eastern Canada on the Bay of Fundy with headquarters in Saint John, New Brunswick. The company began as a wholly owned subsidiary of Marine Atlantic Incorporated (MAI), and in April 1997 was sold to Murray O. Ryder, the former MAI Vice President of Operations.
The Port Mann Bridge is a 10-lane cable-stayed bridge, 90 km/h speed limit, in British Columbia, Canada, that opened to traffic in 2012. It carries 10 lanes of traffic with space reserved for a light rail line.
The Reversing Falls Bridge is a two-lane bridge crossing the Saint John River at Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. It carries New Brunswick Route 100 across the river and there is no toll for its use.
The Ogdensburg–Prescott International Bridge is a suspension bridge connecting Ogdensburg, New York in the United States to Johnstown, Ontario in Canada. Designed by Modjeski & Masters and completed in 1960, it has six spans and a main span of 350.75 metres (1,150.8 ft) totaling 2.4 kilometres (1.5 mi) across the Saint Lawrence River and Saint Lawrence Seaway. The bridge is owned and operated by the Ogdensburg Bridge and Port Authority, which also owns and operates Ogdensburg International Airport, the Port of Ogdensburg-Marine Terminal Facility, Commerce Park, the Port of Waddington, a medium-heavy industrial park and two short line railroads. The Ogdensburg Bridge and Port Authority is a New York State public-benefit corporation.
Partridge Island is a Canadian island located in the Bay of Fundy off the coast of Saint John, New Brunswick, within the city's Inner Harbour.
The Hartland Covered Bridge or Hartland Bridge is the world's longest covered bridge at 1,282 feet (391 m) in length. Located in New Brunswick, Canada, the bridge crosses the Saint John River, joining the Carleton County communities of Hartland and Somerville. The framework consists of seven small Howe Truss bridges joined on six piers. The bridge was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1977, and a Provincial Heritage Place in New Brunswick under the Heritage Conservation Act in 1999.
The Edmundston–Madawaska Bridge is an international bridge which connects the cities of Edmundston, New Brunswick, in Canada and Madawaska, Maine, in the United States, across the Saint John River. The bridge consists of four steel through truss spans, each 70.71 metres (232.0 ft) in length, for a total length of 287.12 metres (942.0 ft), which carries a two lane open steel grid deck roadway.
Navy Island was a small island situated within the Inner Harbour of Saint John, New Brunswick in Canada. For centuries, Navy Island existed as a narrow, oval shaped hunk of rock sitting roughly at the turning point of the harbour where the deep open water ends and the harbour approaches the Reversing Falls. However, the island ceased to exist in its traditional form when the construction of the Saint John Harbour Bridge linked the island to the mainland in the 1970s. The island now sits under the western footing of the bridge, and is survived in name by the Navy Island Forest Products Terminal, operated by the Port of Saint John. When Samuel de Champlain visited Saint John in 1604, the island was the location of a native Maliseet settlement named Ouigoudi.
Saint John Harbour is a large natural harbour on the Atlantic coast of New Brunswick, Canada, and within the seaport city of Saint John, New Brunswick.
The Swallowtail Lighthouse is a Canadian lighthouse located on Grand Manan Island in the Bay of Fundy. It was the first lighthouse to be built on the island. It was first lit on 7 July 1860 and was automated and de-staffed in 1986.
The Samuel-De Champlain Bridge, colloquially known as the Champlain Bridge, is a cable-stayed bridge design by architect Poul Ove Jensen and built to replace the original Champlain Bridge over the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec, between Nuns' Island in the borough of Verdun in Montreal and the suburban city of Brossard on the South Shore. A second, connected bridge links Nuns' Island to the main Island of Montreal. It is the busiest bridge in the country with more cars flowing into it than any other bridge.