Cambie Street Bridge

Cambie Street Bridge
Cambie Street Bridge from the south side of False Creek.
Coordinates	49°16′19″N 123°06′54″W / 49.272005°N 123.114896°W / 49.272005; -123.114896Coordinates: 49°16′19″N 123°06′54″W / 49.272005°N 123.114896°W / 49.272005; -123.114896
Carries	Six lanes of Cambie Street, pedestrians and bicycles
Crosses	False Creek
Locale	Vancouver
Maintained by	City of Vancouver
Characteristics
Design	girder bridge
Total length	1,100 m (3,600 ft)
History
Opened	December 8, 1985 (replaced 1911 and 1891 bridges)

The Cambie Bridge is a six-lane symmetric, precast, varying-depth-post tension-box girder bridge spanning False Creek in Vancouver, British Columbia. The current bridge opened in 1985, but is the third bridge at the same location. Often referred to as the Cambie Street Bridge, it connects Cambie Street on the south shore of False Creek to both Nelson and Smithe Streets in the downtown peninsula. It is the easternmost of False Creek's fixed crossings; the Burrard and Granville bridges are a little more than a kilometre to the west, and the new Canada Line SkyTrain tunnel is built just west of the Cambie Bridge.

The first Cambie Street Bridge, opened in 1891, was built as a simple piled-timber trestle with a trussed timber swing span near the middle. It cost $12,000 (CAD).

The next bridge was a four-lane, medium level steel bridge, 1,247 metres (4,091 ft) long and carrying streetcar tracks. It was completed in 1911 for $740,000, opening to traffic on May 24, 1911. The following year, Canada’s Governor General, the Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, accompanied by the Duchess and their daughter, Princess Patricia, visited Vancouver to officiate at a ceremony renaming the new crossing as the "Connaught Bridge" on September 20, 1912. The name "Connaught" never caught on, and most people continued to call it simply the "Cambie Street Bridge", after the street that runs across it, Cambie Street, named for pioneer Vancouver resident Henry John Cambie.