Westmorland Street Bridge

The Westmorland Street Bridge is a bridge crossing the Saint John River in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Opened in 1981, the Westmorland Street Bridge is an extension of Westmorland Street in Fredericton's central business district and connects with Route 105 (or the Ring Road) in Nashwaaksis, a neighbourhood of Fredericton since municipal amalgamation in the 1970s.

The bridge is a continuous steel girder structure with concrete sidewalls measuring 750 metres (2,460 ft) long and carrying four traffic lanes with a posted speed limit of 70 km/h (43.5 mph). There is a pedestrian/bicycle pathway on the north side of the vehicle lanes.

Due to the propensity of spring freshets on the Saint John River, a large part of the floodplain is preserved as open space free from development on both sides of the bridge; part of this open space is taken up by the bridge approach roads - the south side of the easterly-flowing river hosts Pointe-Sainte-Anne Boulevard (occasionally called Riverfront Drive), whereas the north side hosts Devonshire Drive. Pointe-Sainte-Anne was the historic Acadian name for Fredericton as this "point" in the river was the location of a former village opposite Fort Nashwaak, hence the French name for the street passing over this territory.

These road were constructed at the same time as the Westmorland Street Bridge and are accessed via modified cloverleaf interchanges. The final element of the Westmorland Street Bridge was completed on 5 September 2008 when the northeast exit ramp from the bridge for eastbound traffic on Devonshire Drive was opened. This ramp was part of the original design for the bridge but was not built in the 1970s as a result of budget cuts. The idea of completing the missing ramp was periodically resurrected by municipal politicians over a period of 25 years until construction finally began in 2007. Until that time, a temporary connection was used to connect the eastbound lanes of Union Street (which parallels Devonshire Drive).

Considerable public debate preceded construction of the Westmorland Street Bridge in both municipal and provincial politics. Prior to late 1950s, Fredericton had a single bridge crossing the Saint John River. The Carleton Street Bridge was constructed at the turn of the 20th century as an extension of Carleton Street on the south side to Bridge Street (now Cliffe Street) on the east bank (or north side). Later, in 1959, the Princess Margaret Bridge was opened as part of the construction of the Route 2 (the Trans-Canada Highway) bypass project around the city.

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