Wednesday, November 1, 2023

1964,2001+2015 Port Mann Bridge over Fraser River near at Coquitlam, BC

(Satellite, 595 photos)

Street View, Apr 2023

Street View, Jun 2023

The 2015 bridge replaced a tied arch bridge.
washington.edu, p17

Stephen Rees Flickr via Historic Bridges, License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND) 
"The Port Mann Bridge carries a very large volume of traffic and it was found that additional lanes were needed. Initially, a preservation solution was developed which would have provided an additional bridge to form a one-way couplet of bridges, thereby preserving the beauty and heritage of the  existing bridge. However this idea was scrapped. Why preserve a heritage bridge when  instead it can be reduced to scrap metal and deprive the area of an attractive landmark? Therefore, a new cookie-cutter solution of simply spending massive amounts of money to build one entire new bridge and then demolish the heritage bridge was developed and turned into the actual project seen today....The ugly, mundane new bridge has already demonstrated how inferior modern bridges are. The bridge design failed to take into account the concept that Canada has a season called winter, during which it occasionally gets cold. Ice falling off the cables of the bridge has caused major traffic problems on the bridge."
 
Bridges Now and Then posted
The Port Mann Bridge under construction, July 30, 1962, crossing British Columbia's Fraser River. (City of Richmond BC)

I'll use removing the old bridge as a segue to the new bridge.
Landon Ellis commented on the above post
 
Highway Engineering Discoveries posted
British Columbia
Dale Kearns: Widest bridge in the world when it was built.

binnie
"By 2000, the transportation infrastructure connecting Metro Vancouver was in dire need of upgrades. Part of this included the traffic on Highway 1, which had increased to the point where the Port Mann bridge was congested, in both directions for about 13 hours every weekday."
(It was carrying 127,000 vehicles a day. [CanadianConsultingEngineer])
The new bridge "expanded networks for HOV, cyclists and pedestrians; and accommodated potential future rapid transit [light rail]. The new bridge is 2,020 metres long, making it the largest and longest main river-crossing span in Western Canada; and the second longest in North America."
[The photo doesn't look very congested. I had a hard time finding cars on the bridge.]

"The project included building the second-longest cable stay bridge in North America, which was recognized as the widest bridge in the world by the Guinness Book of World Records." [ConstructConnect]

The approach was built with a travelling gantry to place the precast segments. They were then post-tensioned.
washington.edu, p22

As of 2009, the project was expected to cost $2.5b and be operational by Dec 2012. [washington.edu, p2,3] I saw a figure of $800m for the bridge itself.

washington.edu, p8

washington.edu, p34

mainlandcm
A five lane road was replaced by a ten lane road.

SupremeSteel
The bridge has 272 cable stays.

McnaryBergeron

cisc-icca
"One of the other major challenges on this project was the fabrication of the eight heavy edge girders that sit on the abutments. These girders are 24 metres long, very complicated and weigh 110 tonnes. The ends of these girders are fracture critical, and to weld the thick flanges, web collars and stiffeners required a very elaborate preheat system to be used to control the duration of cool down. The welding (around the clock) and testing to the American 01.5 code were a challenge to the shop tradespeople."

TargetProducts
This is the grout and mixer that was used to fill the post-tensioned ducts after the cables were pulled.

deal

The bridge was a small part of the total project of carving a 10-lane road through the suburbs.
hatch

The upgrade in 2001 added an eastbound HOV lane to the bridge.
kwhconstructors
"The Original Port Mann Bridge is the most travelled bridge in Western Canada. It carries the Trans-Canada Highway over the Fraser River into the Greater Vancouver cities of Surrey and Coquitlam. Built in 1965, it was the first orthotropic deck structure built in North America. The bridge has a main span of 365m with two side spans each of 110m–the third longest arch-bridge in the world when built....the extra lane was achieved by removing the existing sidewalks and installing cantilevered steel brackets from the main girders on the approaches."

tylin
"A barrier-separated, 3-metre-wide bicycle-pedestrian path was included on the east side of the crossing, creating a new connection across the Fraser River for bicyclists and pedestrians. TYLin’s bridge design features two, dramatic, single mast concrete towers, which rise 160 metres over the river and house anchorages for the four planes of cables. The stay-cable system incorporates 288 cables that would extend about 45 kilometres if laid end to end....Due to the bridge location in a high seismic region, TYLin conducted rigorous seismic engineering analysis and design for the project. The bridge is founded in deep alluvium soils on 1.82-metre-diametre steel piles offshore and 2.4-metre-diametre concrete shafts onshore. Foundations were all governed by seismic loads."
[I've seen each of the cable counts of 272 and 288 cables more than once.]

kiewit
It was a design-build project. "The new bridge has also been designed to accommodate future rapid bus and light rail transit."

flatironcorp and mcnarybergeron
[Both of these web pages have a few more construction photos.]

Highway Engineering Discoveries posted
British Columbia
Highway Engineering Discoveries posted again
British Columbia

Dennis DeBruler commented on the above post
Port Mann Bridge, https://goo.gl/maps/AkiqVnowvwQnC7UJ8

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