Heron Road Bridge

The Heron Road Workers Memorial Bridge (formerly the Heron Road Bridge) is a bridge in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It connects Baseline Road and Heron Road passing over both the Rideau River and the Rideau Canal just south of Carleton University. The current bridge was finished in 1967, one year after a bridge collapse killed nine workers in the worst construction accident in both Ottawa and Ontario history. It was renamed in 2016 to commemorate the victims of that accident.

Ottawa mayor Charlotte Whitton initially opposed the plans of prime minister John Diefenbaker to build the bridge to ease east-west traffic in the city. In 1961, Diefenbaker's government threatened to reduce the amount of federal grants to Ottawa by the cost of the bridge if the city did not agree to build it. After further negotiations, an agreement on building the bridge was signed by the municipal, provincial, and federal governments in 1964.

The original construction plan included two three-lane, three hundred metre-long bridges, one eastbound and one westbound, and was budgeted at two and a half million dollars. The bridge was slightly north of Hog’s Back Falls and would connect Baseline Road and Heron Road over the Rideau River and the Rideau Canal for both motorists and pedestrians.

On August 10, 1966, a shift of about seventy workers were almost finished pouring 2000 tons of concrete on the eastern side of the partially completed southern span of the bridge when it collapsed at 3:27 p.m. The wooden falsework on the bridge failed and workers on the bridge fell between fifteen and twenty metres to the ground, while rebars, cement, wood, concrete, and other building materials fell on them. The collapse triggered the nearby Dominion Observatory's seismometer, which prompted officials to issue a statement that the collapse had not been caused by an earthquake. Many workers panicked and ran or swam away from the site right after the collapse, while others ran to the site to help the victims. People picnicking in nearby Vincent Massey Park arrived on the scene to help shortly before emergency services did. Ottawa mayor Don Reid also came to the scene and joined in the rescue efforts with a pair of bolt cutters.

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