This article needs additional citations for verification .(September 2014) |
Water Avenue Bridge | |
---|---|
Coordinates | 49°23′11″N121°27′8″W / 49.38639°N 121.45222°W Coordinates: 49°23′11″N121°27′8″W / 49.38639°N 121.45222°W |
Carries | 2 lanes of Hwy 1 (TCH) |
Crosses | Fraser River |
Locale | Hope, British Columbia |
Other name(s) | Hope-Fraser Bridge, Bill Hartley Bridge |
Owner | Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure |
History | |
Opened | 1916 |
Location | |
The Water Avenue Bridge, officially known as Hope-Fraser Bridge or the Bill Hartley Bridge [1] is a highway bridge that carries the Trans Canada Highway across the Fraser river. It was built around 1916 to carry the Kettle Valley Railroad out of the town of Hope to the CPR mainline on the north side of the river. [2] [3] It is a two level bridge with the highway bridge on top. The bridge had two levels, with vehicular traffic on top, and railway traffic on the lower level. The bridge is no longer used by trains, but the lower deck can be observed from the north (west) bank. The railway, which was long ago removed, ran on the lower level. If you pull off the highway on the north side, eastbound on the highway, and explore under the bridge, this can be clearly seen. The rail bed can be followed a short way west until you come to a private property. Little if anything remains to show that trains ran south and east of the bridge into town.
The Trans-Canada Highway is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast. The main route spans 7,476 km (4,645 mi) across the country, one of the longest routes of its type in the world. The highway system is recognizable by its distinctive white-on-green maple leaf route markers, although there are small variations in the markers in some provinces.
The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for 1,375 kilometres (854 mi), into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of Vancouver. It is the 11th longest river in Canada. The river's annual discharge at its mouth is 112 cubic kilometres (27 cu mi) or 3,550 cubic metres per second (125,000 cu ft/s), and it discharges 20 million tons of sediment into the ocean.
The Fraser Valley is a geographical region in southwestern British Columbia, Canada and northwestern Washington State. It starts just west of Hope in a narrow valley encompassing the Fraser River and ends at the Pacific Ocean stretching from the North Shore Mountains, opposite the city of Vancouver BC, to just south of Bellingham, Washington.
The Kettle Valley Railway was a subsidiary of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) that operated across southern British Columbia, west of Midway running to Rock Creek, then north to Myra Canyon, down to Penticton over to Princeton, Coalmont, Brookmere, Coquihalla and finally Hope where it connected to the main CPR line.
The Township of Langley is a district municipality immediately east of the City of Surrey in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. It extends south from the Fraser River to the Canada–United States border, and west of the City of Abbotsford. Langley Township is not to be confused with the City of Langley, which is adjacent to the township but politically is a separate entity. Langley is located in the eastern part of Metro Vancouver.
The British Columbia Electric Railway (BCER) was an historic railway which operated in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. Originally the parent company for, and later a division of, BC Electric Company, the BCER assumed control of existing streetcar and interurban lines in southwestern British Columbia in 1897, and operated the electric railway systems in the region until the last interurban service was discontinued in 1958. During and after the streetcar era, BC Electric also ran bus and trolleybus systems in Greater Vancouver and bus service in Greater Victoria; these systems subsequently became part of BC Transit, and the routes in Greater Vancouver eventually came under the control of TransLink. Trolley buses still run in the City of Vancouver with one line extending into Burnaby.
Highway 1 is a provincial highway in British Columbia, Canada, that carries the main route of the Trans-Canada Highway (TCH). The highway is 1,047 kilometres (651 mi) long and connects Vancouver Island, the Greater Vancouver region in the Lower Mainland, and the Interior. It is the westernmost portion of the main TCH to be numbered "Highway 1", which continues through Western Canada and extends to the Manitoba–Ontario boundary. The section of Highway 1 in the Lower Mainland is the second-busiest freeway in Canada, after Ontario Highway 401 in Toronto.
Highway 17 is a provincial highway in British Columbia, Canada. It comprises two separate sections connected by a ferry link. The Vancouver Island section is known as the Patricia Bay Highway and connects Victoria to the Swartz Bay ferry terminal in North Saanich. The Lower Mainland section is known as the South Fraser Perimeter Road and connects the Tsawwassen ferry terminal to Delta and Surrey, terminating at an interchange with Highway 1 in the Fraser Valley.
Highway 7, known for most of its length as the Lougheed Highway and Broadway, is an alternative route to Highway 1 through the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. Whereas the controlled-access Highway 1 follows the southern bank of the Fraser River, Highway 7 follows the northern bank.
Highway 11, known locally as the Abbotsford-Mission Highway, is a 17 km (11 mi) long at-grade expressway that figuratively cuts the Fraser Valley in half. The highway was first given the '11' designation in 1958, and it originally followed South Fraser Way through Abbotsford, being re-routed onto the four-lane Sumas Way in the mid-1980s. Highway 11 originally entered Mission over the same bridge that carries a spur of the Canadian Pacific Railway across the Fraser River, but it was re-routed onto its own bridge, the Mission Bridge, in 1973.
Highway 97 is a major highway in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is the longest continuously numbered route in the province, running 2,081 km (1,293 mi) and is the only route that runs the entire north–south length of the British Columbia, connecting the Canada–United States border near Osoyoos in the south to the British Columbia–Yukon boundary in the north at Watson Lake, Yukon.
Highway 5 is a 543 km (337 mi) north–south route in southern British Columbia, Canada. Highway 5 connects the southern Trans-Canada route with the northern Trans-Canada/Yellowhead route, providing the shortest land connection between Vancouver and Edmonton. Despite the entire route being signed as part of the Yellowhead Highway, the portion of Highway 5 south of Kamloops is also known as the Coquihalla Highway while the northern portion is known as the Southern Yellowhead Highway. The Coquihalla section was a toll road until 2008.
Hope is a district municipality at the confluence of the Fraser and Coquihalla rivers in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Hope is at the eastern end of both the Fraser Valley and the Lower Mainland region, and is at the southern end of the Fraser Canyon. To the east, over the Cascade Mountains, is the Interior region, beginning with the Similkameen Country on the farther side of the Allison Pass in Manning Park. Located 154 kilometres (96 mi) east of Vancouver, Hope is at the southern terminus of the Coquihalla Highway and the western terminus of the Crowsnest Highway, locally known as the Hope-Princeton, where they merge with the Trans-Canada Highway. Hope is at the eastern terminus of Highway 7. As it lies at the eastern end of the Fraser Valley in the windward Cascade foothills, the town gets very high amounts of rain and cloud cover – particularly throughout the autumn and winter.
The Cariboo Road was a project initiated in 1860 by the Governor of the Colony of British Columbia, James Douglas. It involved a feat of engineering stretching from Fort Yale to Barkerville, B.C. through extremely hazardous canyon territory in the Interior of British Columbia.
The Fraser Canyon is a major landform of the Fraser River where it descends rapidly through narrow rock gorges in the Coast Mountains en route from the Interior Plateau of British Columbia to the Fraser Valley. Colloquially, the term "Fraser Canyon" is often used to include the Thompson Canyon from Lytton to Ashcroft, since they form the same highway route which most people are familiar with, although it is actually reckoned to begin above Williams Lake, British Columbia at Soda Creek Canyon near the town of the same name.
Coalmont was a tiny mining town, 11 miles (18 km) northwest of Princeton, British Columbia, Canada, on the north bank of the Tulameen River. The population of Coalmont is roughly 100 full-time residents. It is near the community of Tulameen and Otter Lake and the Coldwater Junction of the Coquihalla Highway. The town was established in 1912 to serve as a supply point to the neighbouring coal mine at Blakeburn.
Spences Bridge is a community in the Canadian province of British Columbia, situated 35 km (22 mi) north east of Lytton and 44 km (27 mi) south of Ashcroft. At Spences Bridge the Trans-Canada Highway crosses the Thompson River. In 1892, Spences Bridge's population included 32 people of European ancestry and 130 First Nations people. There were five general stores, three hotels, one Church of England and one school. The principal industries are fruit growing and farming. The population as of the 2021 Canadian census was 76, a decrease of 23.2 per cent from the 2016 count of 99.
Coquihalla Summit is a highway summit along the Coquihalla Highway in British Columbia, Canada. It is the highest point on the highway between the cities of Hope and Merritt. It is located just south of the former toll booth plaza on the Coquihalla Highway, about 50 km (31 mi) north of Hope, and 65 km (40 mi) south of Merritt and is the divide between the Coquihalla River and the Coldwater River.
British Columbia Highway 3, officially named the Crowsnest Highway, is an 841-kilometre (523 mi) highway that traverses southern British Columbia, Canada. It runs from the Trans-Canada Highway (Highway 1) at Hope to Crowsnest Pass at the Alberta border and forms the western portion of the interprovincial Crowsnest Highway that runs from Hope to Medicine Hat, Alberta. The highway is considered a Core Route of the National Highway System.
U.S. Route 395 (US 395) is a United States Numbered Highway that runs from California to the inland regions of Oregon and Washington. It travels north–south through Washington, including long concurrencies with Interstate 82 (I-82) and I-90, and connects the Tri-Cities region to Spokane and the Canadian border at Laurier.