First pre-fabricated bridge for $1.3B Port Lands project in Toronto sails from Nova Scotia
By On-Site Staff
Bridges
The steel bridge waiting to loaded onto a barge en route to Toronto. PHOTO: Waterfront Toronto
The first of four bridges for Toronto’s $1.3 billion Port Lands Flood Protection project has begun the final leg of its multi-stage trip to the city’s waterfront.
The 57-metre welded steel structure was loaded onto a barge in Dartmouth, N.S. and set sail for Toronto Oct. 30. It will make its way up the St. Lawrence Seaway over the next several weeks, Waterfront Toronto said.
The 350-tonne bridge is one component of a city, provincial and federal initiative to revitalize an eastern section of Toronto’s waterfront known as the Port Lands. The seven-year project, which will create a new mouth for the Don River and open up some 290 hectares to redevelopment, is being overseen by contractor EllisDon.
Work in the Port Lands will create a new island, hence the need for a series of bridges. Though welded together and completed in Nova Scotia at the Cherubini Metal Works, the steel components for the bridge were bent at CIG, a shipyard in Netherlands specializing in forming metal into unique shapes, Waterfront Toronto noted earlier this year.
Once in place, the first of the new bridges will connect Cherry Street to Villiers Island. The remaining three steel structures will follow as the project progresses.
The Port Lands project is scheduled to run until 2024.
