131-478: A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide valley, road, river, or other low-lying terrain features and obstacles. The term viaduct is derived from the Latin via meaning "road", and ducere meaning "to lead". It
262-596: A bridge-restaurant which is a bridge built to serve as a restaurant. Other suspension bridge towers carry transmission antennas. Conservationists use wildlife overpasses to reduce habitat fragmentation and animal-vehicle collisions. The first animal bridges sprung up in France in the 1950s, and these types of bridges are now used worldwide to protect both large and small wildlife. Bridges are subject to unplanned uses as well. The areas underneath some bridges have become makeshift shelters and homes to homeless people, and
393-612: A spur route . This then-terminus of the Gardiner was also where the provincial Highway 2 routing shifted back to Lake Shore Boulevard, until Highway 2 was decommissioned in 1998. This segment, built as part of the Queen Elizabeth Way by the Province of Ontario, was transferred to the City of Toronto in 1997, and designated as part of the Gardiner. The original QEW highway was built in
524-520: A bridge is to be designed, standards authorities specify simplified notional load models, notably HL-93, intended to give the same load effects as the characteristic maximum values. The Eurocode is an example of a standard for bridge traffic loading that was developed in this way. Most bridge standards are only applicable for short and medium spans - for example, the Eurocode is only applicable for loaded lengths up to 200 m. Longer spans are dealt with on
655-471: A case-by-case basis. It is generally accepted that the intensity of load reduces as span increases because the probability of many trucks being closely spaced and extremely heavy reduces as the number of trucks involved increases. It is also generally assumed that short spans are governed by a small number of trucks traveling at high speed, with an allowance for dynamics. Longer spans on the other hand, are governed by congested traffic and no allowance for dynamics
786-534: A circular off-ramp to York Street northbound, and it was nicknamed the "Hot Wheels Ramp". This segment was completed in 1964. In the original proposal, the elevated segment would descend to ground level and meet the Don Valley Parkway at a clover-leaf interchange. It was instead constructed as an elevated section overhead of Lake Shore Boulevard and at its eastern end forks into a flyover of the Don River mouth and
917-480: A combination of structural health monitoring and testing. This is regulated in country-specific engineer standards and includes an ongoing monitoring every three to six months, a simple test or inspection every two to three years and a major inspection every six to ten years. In Europe, the cost of maintenance is considerable and is higher in some countries than spending on new bridges. The lifetime of welded steel bridges can be significantly extended by aftertreatment of
1048-403: A cost of CA$ 200,000 . The road bridge of Dowling Avenue over the Gardiner was demolished in the 2000s, replaced by a pedestrian bridge. The section between Jameson Avenue and Spadina Avenue was completed and opened on August 1, 1962 and the westbound lanes from York Street were opened on December 3, 1962. The eastbound lanes from Spadina to York opened in 1963. The elevated section starts from
1179-614: A course of action would have left the Downtown without an east-west freeway for several years. In the end, city council voted to have the elevated section extensively rehabilitated and the elevated section in downtown Toronto was closed down for extensive repairs. On April 1, 1997, the stretch of the Queen Elizabeth Way between Highway 427 and the Humber River was downloaded from the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario to Metropolitan Toronto and
1310-399: A different site, and re-used. They are important in military engineering and are also used to carry traffic while an old bridge is being rebuilt. Movable bridges are designed to move out of the way of boats or other kinds of traffic, which would otherwise be too tall to fit. These are generally electrically powered. The Tank bridge transporter (TBT) has the same cross-country performance as
1441-594: A few will predominate. The separation of forces and moments may be quite clear. In a suspension or cable-stayed bridge , the elements in tension are distinct in shape and placement. In other cases the forces may be distributed among a large number of members, as in a truss. The world's longest beam bridge is Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in southern Louisiana in the United States, at 23.83 miles (38.35 km), with individual spans of 56 feet (17 m). Beam bridges are
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#17328490435901572-512: A freeway, and amended the proposal to Gardiner Expressway. Metro Council approved the renaming in August 1957: After we had finished arguing with [The Board of Trade], Courtland Elliot, the president, made his annual report. In it, he suggested the road should be named the Gardiner Expressway. Before that, somebody had wanted to name an old man's home after me. Somebody else had wanted to name
1703-541: A landscape, usually by bridging a river valley or other eroded opening in an otherwise flat area. Often such valleys had roads descending either side (with a small bridge over the river, where necessary) that become inadequate for the traffic load, necessitating a viaduct for "through" traffic. Such bridges also lend themselves for use by rail traffic, which requires straighter and flatter routes. Some viaducts have more than one deck, such that one deck has vehicular traffic and another deck carries rail traffic. One example of this
1834-508: A new Humber bridge to connect the Queen Elizabeth Way and expand roads in the Sunnyside area, of which the city would pay CA$ 4.2 million and the province $ 4.7 million. At the same time Ontario was planning its Toronto Bypass north of the city and George Doucett , the Ontario minister of highways, pronounced the toll highway an "antiquated concept" and predicted that no-one would use it if it
1965-595: A repurposed rail viaduct provides a garden promenade on top and workspace for artisans below. The garden promenade is called the Coulée verte René-Dumont while the workspaces in the arches below are the Viaduc des Arts . The project was inaugurated in 1993. Manhattan's High Line , inaugurated in 2009, also uses an elevated train line as a linear urban park . In Indonesia viaducts are used for railways in Java and also for highways such as
2096-508: A separate connector to the east. The section between the Parkway and Yonge Street was built eight lanes wide. Known as "Gardiner East", this segment was elevated directly overhead of Lake Shore Boulevard, and opened in July 1966 without ceremony. This section had no access to the Don Valley Parkway, as westbound motorists had to continue underneath on Lake Shore Boulevard which met the Parkway on-ramp at
2227-466: A sewage plant after me. I didn't exactly like those ideas and so when the third one came along I accepted the honour. Fred Gardiner By 1963, the first rooftop billboards along the Expressway were built, targeting the daily 40,000 to 60,000 motorists. Companies paid up to $ 3,000 per month to locate their billboard. Today, there are dozens of neon signs, billboards and video boards in the proximity of
2358-456: A signalized intersection. Gardiner East ended just east of Leslie Street where eastbound traffic was forced to exit at an offramp descending to Lake Shore Boulevard (renamed from Keating Street) or a circular ramp to Leslie Street, while for westbound traffic entering the expressway there was a single lane onramp. The design left the eastern end open for a future connection with the proposed but never-built Scarborough Expressway, leaving this segment
2489-553: A simple type of suspension bridge , were used by the Inca civilization in the Andes mountains of South America, just prior to European colonization in the 16th century. The Ashanti built bridges over streams and rivers . They were constructed by pounding four large forked tree trunks into the stream bed, placing beams along these forked pillars, then positioning cross-beams that were finally covered with four to six inches of dirt. During
2620-578: A span of 552 m (1,811 ft). The bridge was opened 29 April 2009, in Chongqing , China. The longest suspension bridge in the world is the 4,608 m (15,118 ft) 1915 Çanakkale Bridge in Turkey. The longest cable-stayed bridge since 2012 is the 1,104 m (3,622 ft) Russky Bridge in Vladivostok , Russia. Some Engineers sub-divide 'beam' bridges into slab, beam-and-slab and box girder on
2751-732: A stream. Often in palaces, a bridge will be built over an artificial waterway as symbolic of a passage to an important place or state of mind. A set of five bridges cross a sinuous waterway in an important courtyard of the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. The central bridge was reserved exclusively for the use of the Emperor and Empress, with their attendants. The estimated life of bridges varies between 25 and 80 years depending on location and material. Bridges may age hundred years with proper maintenance and rehabilitation. Bridge maintenance consisting of
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#17328490435902882-479: A tank even when fully loaded. It can deploy, drop off and load bridges independently, but it cannot recover them. Double-decked (or double-decker) bridges have two levels, such as the George Washington Bridge , connecting New York City to Bergen County , New Jersey , US, as the world's busiest bridge, carrying 102 million vehicles annually; truss work between the roadway levels provided stiffness to
3013-470: A toll road or built by private interests. A toll road was opposed by the Ontario Deputy Minister of Highways J. D. Millar, who suggested that "cars would be waiting for miles" to pay a three-cent tax. Millar stated that "the Ontario driver was taxed and taxed heavily and expected his roads will be paid for." Toronto at the time was not yet planning to fully build the highway, only planning to build
3144-415: A variety of activities. The first phase of the project was completed on January 6, 2018. The Gardiner, along with the Don Valley Parkway and Allen Road, were fitted with distinct cobra-neck 30-foot (9.1 m) lamp poles . They were first fitted with fluorescent tubes in the 1960s, which was changed to the orange low-pressure sodium-vapor lamps (LPS) in 1978. (A 1960s experiment of installing lights on
3275-580: A vehicle in the westbound lanes, killing three people. West of the Humber River, there was also a weaving problem on the westbound Gardiner due to an on-ramp from Lake Shore Boulevard followed by an off-ramp to Lake Shore Boulevard just before the CN rail underpass. As part of the Humber bridges replacement, the off-ramp (originally built in the 1960s as part of the QEW's widening) was extended and placed upon its own alignment with
3406-540: A westbound on-ramp from Bathurst Street directly over the fort. Opposition from historical societies and the City of Toronto came to a head when the city refused to transfer the land to Metro Toronto. Gardiner himself and George O. Grant, the Metro Roads Commissioner, at first opposed the re-routing of the highway around the fort as it would mean a "greater than six-degree curve" in the highway, necessitating drivers to slow down. Gardiner rescinded his opposition to
3537-615: Is a 19th-century derivation from an analogy with ancient Roman aqueducts . Like the Roman aqueducts , many early viaducts comprised a series of arches of roughly equal length. The longest viaduct in antiquity may have been the Pont Serme which crossed wide marshes in southern France. At its longest point, it measured 2,679 meters with a width of 22 meters. Viaducts are commonly used in many cities that are railroad hubs , such as Chicago, Birmingham, London and Manchester . These viaducts cross
3668-456: Is a bridge that carries water, resembling a viaduct, which is a bridge that connects points of equal height. A road-rail bridge carries both road and rail traffic. Overway is a term for a bridge that separates incompatible intersecting traffic, especially road and rail. Some bridges accommodate other purposes, such as the tower of Nový Most Bridge in Bratislava , which features a restaurant, or
3799-574: Is an early example of a double-decked bridge. The upper level carries a railway, and the lower level is used for road traffic. Other examples include Britannia Bridge over the Menai Strait and Craigavon Bridge in Derry, Northern Ireland. The Oresund Bridge between Copenhagen and Malmö consists of a four-lane highway on the upper level and a pair of railway tracks at the lower level. Tower Bridge in London
3930-499: Is built across land rather than water, the space below the arches may be used for businesses such as car parking, vehicle repairs, light industry, bars and nightclubs. In the United Kingdom, many railway lines in urban areas have been constructed on viaducts, and so the infrastructure owner Network Rail has an extensive property portfolio in arches under viaducts. In Berlin the space under the arches of elevated subway lines ( S-Bahn )
4061-485: Is different example of a double-decked bridge, with the central section consisting of a low-level bascule span and a high-level footbridge . A viaduct is made up of multiple bridges connected into one longer structure. The longest and some of the highest bridges are viaducts, such as the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway and Millau Viaduct . A multi-way bridge has three or more separate spans which meet near
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4192-417: Is led by architects, bridges are usually designed by engineers. This follows from the importance of the engineering requirements; namely spanning the obstacle and having the durability to survive, with minimal maintenance, in an aggressive outdoor environment. Bridges are first analysed; the bending moment and shear force distributions are calculated due to the applied loads. For this, the finite element method
4323-540: Is needed. Calculating the loading due to congested traffic remains a challenge as there is a paucity of data on inter-vehicle gaps, both within-lane and inter-lane, in congested conditions. Weigh-in-Motion (WIM) systems provide data on inter-vehicle gaps but only operate well in free flowing traffic conditions. Some authors have used cameras to measure gaps and vehicle lengths in jammed situations and have inferred weights from lengths using WIM data. Others have used microsimulation to generate typical clusters of vehicles on
4454-834: Is the Prince Edward Viaduct in Toronto, Canada, that carries motor traffic on the top deck as Bloor Street , and metro as the Bloor-Danforth subway line on the lower deck, over the steep Don River valley . Others were built to span settled areas, crossing over roads beneath—the reason for many viaducts in London. Viaducts over water make use of islands or successive arches. They are often combined with other types of bridges or tunnels to cross navigable waters as viaduct sections, while less expensive to design and build than tunnels or bridges with larger spans, typically lack sufficient horizontal and vertical clearance for large ships. See
4585-436: Is the eastbound ramp from the Gardiner to the Don Valley Parkway which goes up and over the westbound lanes, then drops to ground level. A tall wall concrete barrier topped with green metal blades is installed in the median of the elevated segment. The blades act to reduce the glare of oncoming headlights from the opposing direction of traffic. During the original construction concrete parapet walls with metal railings were used in
4716-737: Is the most popular. The analysis can be one-, two-, or three-dimensional. For the majority of bridges, a two-dimensional plate model (often with stiffening beams) is sufficient or an upstand finite element model. On completion of the analysis, the bridge is designed to resist the applied bending moments and shear forces, section sizes are selected with sufficient capacity to resist the stresses. Many bridges are made of prestressed concrete which has good durability properties, either by pre-tensioning of beams prior to installation or post-tensioning on site. In most countries, bridges, like other structures, are designed according to Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) principles. In simple terms, this means that
4847-405: Is used for several different purposes, including small eateries or bars. Elevated expressways were built in major cities such as Boston ( Central Artery ), Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seoul , Tokyo and Toronto ( Gardiner Expressway ). Some were demolished because they were unappealing and divided the city. In other cases, viaducts were demolished because they were structurally unsafe, such as
4978-748: The CN Tower and the Rogers Centre and north of the residential condominiums of the western end of the Harbourfront neighbourhood. Between York and Yonge Streets, the highway is flanked by the downtown skyscrapers of the South Core and eastern Harbourfront area, and passes the Scotiabank Arena . North along Bay Street are the office towers of the Toronto Financial District . From Yonge east to
5109-524: The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel . The Millau Viaduct is a cable-stayed road-bridge that spans the valley of the river Tarn near Millau in southern France. It opened in 2004 and is the tallest vehicular bridge in the world, with one pier's summit at 343 metres (1,125 ft). The viaduct Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge in China was the longest bridge in the world as of 2011. Where a viaduct
5240-628: The Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco, which was damaged by an earthquake in 1989. However, in developing nations such as Thailand ( Bang Na Expressway , the world's longest road bridge ), India ( Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway ), China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nicaragua, elevated expressways have been built and more are under construction to improve traffic flow, particularly as a workaround of land shortage when built atop surface roads. Other uses have been found for some viaducts. In Paris, France,
5371-618: The Hellenistic era can be found in the Peloponnese. The greatest bridge builders of antiquity were the ancient Romans . The Romans built arch bridges and aqueducts that could stand in conditions that would damage or destroy earlier designs, some of which still stand today. An example is the Alcántara Bridge , built over the river Tagus , in Spain. The Romans also used cement, which reduced
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5502-630: The Humber River was built in segments from 1955 until 1964 by the Metropolitan Toronto government with provincial highway funds, and upon completion the Gardiner also received the Highway 2 provincial route numbering until 1998. The ten-lane section west of the Humber was formerly the eastern-most section of the QEW until it was transferred to Metro Toronto in 1997. Often described as "an out-of-date, crumbling and frequently traffic-jammed freeway",
5633-599: The Jakarta Inner Ring Road . In January 2019, the Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle was closed and replaced with a tunnel after several decades of use because it was seismically unsafe. Bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water , valley , road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over
5764-605: The Liberty Village neighbourhood to the north and the buildings of Exhibition Place on the south side. The highway becomes elevated at this point, rising at a gentle grade with a view of the Toronto skyline straight ahead. From east of the Exhibition Place streetcar loop and just west of Strachan Avenue, the space below the elevated sections of the highway was enclosed for use as storage space. Bricked sections with windows can be seen when driving along Manitoba Drive or taking
5895-486: The Road Emergency Services Communications Unit system (found also on the Don Valley Parkway and Allen Road). Locations with two cameras have one on the elevated portion and one on the underside along Lake Shore Boulevard. Some cameras are off the Gardiner on Lake Shore Boulevard. Multi piece vertical blade delineators have been installed upon portions of the concrete median barriers separating
6026-531: The Roncesvalles neighbourhood on the north side. Along the north side from Roncesvalles to Exhibition Place is the neighbourhood of Parkdale . Like the rail lines which run parallel to the Gardiner along its north side, the Gardiner is built in a cut from Dowling Avenue to Dufferin Street and is below grade. From Dufferin to Strachan Avenue, the highway is flanked by light industry and a wall of residential towers in
6157-770: The University of Minnesota ). Likewise, in Toronto , the Prince Edward Viaduct has five lanes of motor traffic, bicycle lanes, and sidewalks on its upper deck; and a pair of tracks for the Bloor–Danforth subway line on its lower deck. The western span of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge also has two levels. Robert Stephenson 's High Level Bridge across the River Tyne in Newcastle upon Tyne , completed in 1849,
6288-495: The river Severn . With the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, truss systems of wrought iron were developed for larger bridges, but iron does not have the tensile strength to support large loads. With the advent of steel, which has a high tensile strength, much larger bridges were built, many using the ideas of Gustave Eiffel . In Canada and the United States, numerous timber covered bridges were built in
6419-521: The 13th century BC, in the Peloponnese is one of the oldest arch bridges in existence and use. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the origin of the word bridge to an Old English word brycg , of the same meaning. The Oxford English Dictionary also notes that there is some suggestion that the word can be traced directly back to Proto-Indo-European *bʰrēw-. However, they also note that "this poses semantic problems." The origin of
6550-511: The 18th century, there were many innovations in the design of timber bridges by Hans Ulrich Grubenmann , Johannes Grubenmann , as well as others. The first book on bridge engineering was written by Hubert Gautier in 1716. A major breakthrough in bridge technology came with the erection of the Iron Bridge in Shropshire, England in 1779. It used cast iron for the first time as arches to cross
6681-403: The 1930s and connected to the Gardiner in the 1950s. This section of the QEW between the recently expanded Highway 27 (which would be renumbered as Highway 427 on December 4, 1971) and Lake Shore Boulevard was reconstructed in the late 1960s to 8-10 lanes which included a short collector-express system between Kipling Avenue and Royal York Road. The Humber River was the western border of
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#17328490435906812-461: The 1950s, were removed and replaced by new structures from 1998-1999, at a cost of CA$ 100 (equivalent to $ 169.11 in 2023) million. The old bridge pillars, which were resting on soil, not on bedrock, had sunk by a metre, giving the eastbound Gardiner a roller-coaster ride or "Humber hump". Fatal collisions had occurred at the location, including an August 13, 1995, incident where a speeding automobile going eastbound became airborne and collided with
6943-541: The Bay-Adelaide office complex and other development downtown to proceed. The Province did approve the Front Street extension, but the then-City of Toronto Council voted against it. The Front Street extension proposal was later resurrected as part of proposals to redevelop or dismantle the central section of the Gardiner. The old Gardiner and Lake Shore Boulevard bridges over the Humber River, which had been in service since
7074-463: The Board of Control. In December 1947, the Board of Control abandoned the plan, on advice that the bridges for the highway would not be built due to a shortage of steel. By 1952, the lake shore highway plan cost had escalated to an estimated $ 30 million. Toronto's Mayor Allan A. Lamport objected to the cost being borne solely by the City of Toronto. Lamport suggested that the road could be built either as
7205-588: The CNE grounds followed a Hydro-electric right-of-way beside the railway tracks to the north of the Exhibition, using approximately 10 acres (40,000 m ) of CNE land, and requiring the removal of the original Dufferin Gate and the demolition of two other CNE buildings. To make up for the loss of lands, Metro infilled into Lake Ontario to the breakwater. East of the CNE grounds, the inland route proposed to fly over Fort York with
7336-573: The CNE to downtown segment. Alternative route proposals emerged in 1954 from the Toronto Harbour Commission, which wanted the route moved further north, and planner Edwin Kay, who proposed a tunnel through downtown. The decision was then made to proceed with the non-contentious parts of the original Margison plan, to build a new Humber bridge to connect with the QEW, the Queen Street extension, and
7467-573: The CNE, others sold off or just destroyed. The carousel was moved to the newly built Disneyland . The Amusement Park lands were subsumed by the Lake Shore Boulevard expansion to six lanes. Only the Palais Royale hall, Sunnyside Bathing Pavilion and Sunnyside Pool were not demolished. A pedestrian bridge crossing was built from the foot of Roncesvalles Avenue to the Palais Royale site. To
7598-538: The City of Toronto until the amalgamation of all Metropolitan Toronto municipalities into one Toronto. On July 29, 1957, while still under construction, the Metro Toronto Roads and Traffic Committee, on the suggestion of Weston Mayor Harry Clark, (the committee chairman) renamed the Lakeshore Expressway to the F. G. Gardiner Freeway. Clark later suggested that the road had too many interchanges to be called
7729-463: The Don River. The highway proceeded at grade from that point eastward, ending at Coxwell Avenue and Queen Street East . Interchanges were proposed for Jameson Avenue , Strachan Avenue, Spadina Avenue, York Street, Jarvis Street, Don Roadway, Carlaw Avenue, Keating Avenue (the present Lake Shore Boulevard East) and Coxwell Avenue. The cost was then estimated at $ 50 million. The plan also proposed extending Queen Street westwards through High Park to west of
7860-417: The Don Valley Parkway ramp. The elevated section is supported by steel- reinforced concrete columns . The roadway itself was constructed on top of concrete slabs supported by steel girders. The height of the elevated section is higher than required to cross city streets and provide clearance underneath. The intent of this was to reduce traffic noise at ground level. The highest point of the elevated section
7991-632: The Don Valley Parkway, the rail lines run parallel to the Gardiner on the north side, and to the north of the rail lines is the low-rise residential development of the St. Lawrence neighbourhood, the Distillery District and the West Don Lands . To the south of the highway, the land use is light industrial and waterfront lands in transition. The highway crosses the Don River where there are connecting ramps to
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#17328490435908122-402: The Don Valley Parkway. From 2002 to September 2021, the highway's elevated section descends to ground level via the Logan Avenue Ramp where it merges with Lake Shore Boulevard before a signalized intersection with Bouchette Street. Due to the ongoing realigment of the highway's eastern end as of September 2021, with the demolition of the Don River crossing and Logan Avenue Ramp, traffic defaults to
8253-416: The Expressway, mostly in the sections between Roncesvalles Avenue to Spadina Avenue and east of Jarvis Street. In 1965, 62 yellow 'call boxes', containing phones for emergency assistance, installed by the Ontario Motor League, were fixed to poles on the shoulders. These remained in operation until the 1990s. In 1994, the Road Emergency Services Communications Unit traffic management system began operation on
8384-435: The Gardiner and Lake Shore Boulevard and stranded motorists became quickly detected by the CCTV cameras and operators quickly dispatch assistance. By 1966, rush hour traffic and collisions in the Jameson area meant that the Jameson westbound on-ramp was closed permanently during rush hours. That same year, after criticism of the safety of the expressway by Toronto coroner Morton Shulman , Metro started installing guardrails on
8515-446: The Gardiner is now the focus of a major rehabilitation project that is expected to last at least until 2030. The condition of the elevated section has deteriorated over the years, necessitating much of its replacement. Parts of the expressway have been demolished or re-designed. A section east of the Don River was demolished in 2001, while in 2018, the off-ramp to York/Bay/Yonge Streets was replaced by an off-ramp to Lower Simcoe Street, and
8646-404: The Humber River to Dowling section, demolishing Sunnyside Park and South Parkdale. Metro also approved the eastern section of the expressway from Sherbourne Street to the east, but the central, elevated section was left for further deliberation. Metro approved $ 33 million for the eastern and western sections in its 1955 budget, but omitted the Humber River bridge. The route to the north of
8777-409: The Humber River to connect with the Queensway and extending Keating Avenue east to Woodbine Avenue. The shoreline route was opposed by the City of Toronto and the Toronto Harbour Commission , and Margison was tasked with plotting a route north of the CNE grounds. This plan was delivered in July 1954. The change to an inland route north of the CNE grounds was estimated to cost another $ 11 million as
8908-406: The Humber River, the Gardiner is straight, eight-to-ten lanes wide. A continuation of the QEW, municipal control of the freeway starts shortly after an onramp from Highway 427. Due to its status as a former Ontario 400-series highway when it was previously the eastern segment of the QEW, and because of its more recent design (rebuilt in the late 1960s), this section was built to higher standards than
9039-455: The Humber to the Don River. In November 1947, the City's works committee approved a four-lane highway, following a path beside the rail lines along the north of the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) grounds, ending at Fleet Street to the East at a cost of CA$ 6 million , to be approved by a plebiscite. The Toronto Board of Control approved the plan, but City Council voted against the plan after 11 hours of deliberation, sending it back to
9170-421: The Lake Shore Boulevard and Queen and King Streets in the Parkdale and High Park areas were apparently notorious for this.) Another reason for the proposal to build the lake shore highway was the expected opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway and the need for adequate roadways to serve the expanded port facilities. In May 1947, the Toronto City Planning Board proposed building a four-lane "Waterfront Highway" from
9301-481: The Metro-constructed Gardiner and has a speed limit of 100 km/h. A system of collector and express lanes serves the Parclo interchanges with Kipling Avenue and Islington Avenue , and as the eastbound collector lanes merge into the express lanes approaching the Royal York Road overpass this also marks the start of the lengthy off-ramp to Park Lawn Road. From Highway 427 to Grand Avenue the highway passes through an area of residential, commercial and light industry. To
9432-422: The Sunnyside area on the north side of the Gardiner from Roncesvalles Avenue to Wilson Park Avenue was cleaned up and planted with floral logos, with 26 tonnes (29 short tons) of garbage removed in the process. The advertising, which pays for the maintenance and cleaning of the hillside, permits no slogans and no alcohol or tobacco logos. The logos are planted yew bushes and are maintained by an independent company on
9563-610: The appearance of the bridge can have great importance. Often, this is the case with a large bridge that serves as an entrance to a city, or crosses over a main harbor entrance. These are sometimes known as signature bridges. Designers of bridges in parks and along parkways often place more importance on aesthetics, as well. Examples include the stone-faced bridges along the Taconic State Parkway in New York. Bridges are typically more aesthetically pleasing if they are simple in shape,
9694-613: The attention of the general public in the 1990s by the novel, movie and play The Bridges of Madison County . In 1927, welding pioneer Stefan Bryła designed the first welded road bridge in the world, the Maurzyce Bridge which was later built across the river Słudwia at Maurzyce near Łowicz , Poland in 1929. In 1995, the American Welding Society presented the Historic Welded Structure Award for
9825-596: The basis of their cross-section. A slab can be solid or voided (though this is no longer favored for inspectability reasons) while beam-and-slab consists of concrete or steel girders connected by a concrete slab. A box-girder cross-section consists of a single-cell or multi-cellular box. In recent years, integral bridge construction has also become popular. Most bridges are fixed bridges, meaning they have no moving parts and stay in one place until they fail or are demolished. Temporary bridges, such as Bailey bridges , are designed to be assembled, taken apart, transported to
9956-437: The bridge to Poland. Bridges can be categorized in several different ways. Common categories include the type of structural elements used, by what they carry, whether they are fixed or movable, and by the materials used. Bridges may be classified by how the actions of tension , compression , bending , torsion and shear are distributed through their structure. Most bridges will employ all of these to some degree, but only
10087-530: The bridge. Gardiner Expressway The Frederick G. Gardiner Expressway , commonly known as the Gardiner Expressway or simply the Gardiner , is a partially at grade and elevated municipal expressway in Toronto, Ontario , Canada. Running close to the shore of Lake Ontario , it extends from the foot of the Don Valley Parkway (DVP) in the east, just past the mouth of the Don River , to
10218-446: The building of the Expressway. The section between Humber River and Jameson Avenue was completed in 1958. The expressway, by then named the Gardiner Expressway, was officially opened by Gardiner himself and Ontario Premier Leslie Frost on August 8, 1958. When this section opened, it opened without guard-rails on the median dividing the different directions. Steel guard-rails and a 'glare shield' were approved for this section in 1965 at
10349-439: The center of the bridge. Multi-way bridges with only three spans appear as a "T" or "Y" when viewed from above. Multi-way bridges are extremely rare. The Tridge , Margaret Bridge , and Zanesville Y-Bridge are examples. A bridge can be categorized by what it is designed to carry, such as trains, pedestrian or road traffic ( road bridge ), a pipeline ( Pipe bridge ) or waterway for water transport or barge traffic. An aqueduct
10480-486: The change in March 1958 after visiting the site with a delegation from the City and historical societies. In 1959, Fort York was again under threat. A proposal was published to link Highway 400 to the Gardiner to meet in the vicinity of the fort. Gardiner proposed that Metro Toronto and the City share the costs of relocating the fort to the waterfront. In the end, the fort was not moved, the westbound on-ramp from Bathurst Street
10611-467: The deck is thinner in proportion to its span, the lines of the structure are continuous, and the shapes of the structural elements reflect the forces acting on them. To create a beautiful image, some bridges are built much taller than necessary. This type, often found in east-Asian style gardens, is called a Moon bridge , evoking a rising full moon. Other garden bridges may cross only a dry bed of stream-washed pebbles, intended only to convey an impression of
10742-438: The east and westbound lanes. The Gardiner Expressway was one of the first projects undertaken by the newly formed government of Metro Toronto . The route of the Expressway necessitated the paving over of parkland, demolition of residences and a popular amusement park , and a long elevated section to get through the downtown area. Planning was done stage-by-stage, from the Humber River east through downtown. The Humber Bay section
10873-415: The east of Sunnyside, the 1800s-era 'South Parkdale' residential neighbourhood at the foot of Jameson Avenue was demolished in 1957. The expressway, like the railway just to the north, was cut through the area at lake shore level. An interchange was built at Jameson with on and off ramps to Lake Shore Boulevard, and Lake Shore Boulevard was expanded to six lanes in the area. This created a pedestrian barrier to
11004-501: The eastbound offramp from the Gardiner (which provides the large majority of the traffic along Lake Shore east of this point). on the Humber River bridge. East of the Humber River bridges the speed limit lowers to 90 km/h as the Gardiner curves along Humber Bay , passing to the south of the Swansea neighbourhood, before passing the Sunnyside waterfront on the south and High Park and
11135-494: The eastern terminus to Lake Shore Boulevard was demolished the following year. In November 2023, the municipal and provincial governments announced a tentative deal which will see responsibility for the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway transferred to the provincial government, with the two highways to be maintained as provincial highways. From the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) and Highway 427 interchange, east to
11266-610: The elevated Gardiner's parapets was quickly shelved.) In the late 1990s, the low pressure sodium lighting was failing and most of the cobra-neck conventional poles were replaced in favour of shaded high-mast lighting, with high-pressure sodium-vapor lamps (HPS); however the elevated Gardiner still retained the LPS cobra-neck poles for seven more years, while the section immediately west of Dufferin Street still contains several with HPS lamps. The last remaining LPS lamps, which were no longer being produced, were all replaced by HPS in early 2006. Since
11397-436: The end of 2003, the conventional truss lighting poles that the province installed on the QEW segment in the late 1960s have been removed west of Kipling Avenue and east of Royal York Road, being replaced with shaded high-mast lighting like that used on the Don Valley Parkway. On August 11, 1958, three days after the road opened, the Gardiner Expressway's first collision happened. The expressway has 28 cameras that are part of
11528-404: The exit shifted to before the Humber River, separating traffic from the on-ramp's entry point. In the 1990s, after 30 years of usage, the City found that the central elevated section needed extensive repairs, and the ongoing maintenance was expensive. Proposals started to be floated for the demolition of the elevated segment with its replacement to be buried underground in a tunnel, although such
11659-595: The first human-made bridges with significant span were probably intentionally felled trees. Among the oldest timber bridges is the Holzbrücke Rapperswil-Hurden bridge that crossed upper Lake Zürich in Switzerland; prehistoric timber pilings discovered to the west of the Seedamm causeway date back to 1523 BC. The first wooden footbridge there led across Lake Zürich; it was reconstructed several times through
11790-499: The first part of the actual Expressway started in 1956 with the Humber River bridge, followed by the Humber to Jameson segment. Max Tanenbaum's York Steel supplied the iron girder sections that supported the road deck on the elevated sections. The route of the expressway around Humber Bay necessitated the demolition of the Sunnyside Amusement Park on the lakeshore, which had existed since 1925. Some amusements were moved to
11921-552: The formation of Metro Toronto, the Metropolitan Executive Committee, chaired by Fred Gardiner, ordered the planning of the Lakeshore Expressway as a four-lane or six-lane expressway from the Humber in the west to Woodbine Avenue in the east. The cost was estimated at CA$ 20 million . Route planning was given to the engineering firm Margison Babcock and Associates, with the proviso that an American firm expert in expressway building would be involved. Margison's plan
12052-400: The full length of the Gardiner and Don Valley expressways. In 1968, the speed limit was proposed to be raised from 50 mph (80 km/h) to 55 mph (89 km/h) (today it is 90 km/h (56 mph). Journalists openly questioned whether anyone could reach that top speed with the "horrendous volume of traffic" during peak rush times. In 1988, the unmaintained grassy hillside in
12183-401: The highway, first named the Lakeshore Expressway, were first developed prior to the formation of Metro Toronto. In the post-war period, the population of greater Toronto was growing at a rate of 50,000 persons per year, the ownership of private automobiles was growing, and the traffic between downtown Toronto and the western suburbs was regularly stuck in 'traffic jams.' (The Sunnyside stretch of
12314-583: The homes to the west of the CNE grounds would have to be purchased and demolished. This change moved the route from the Humber to the Ontario Hydro right-of-way next to the railway tracks, saving 11 acres (45,000 m ) of waterfront. The expressway was moved to the north of Lake Shore Boulevard in the Sunnyside segment and the Jameson Avenue area. The inland route, while not opposed in the Sunnyside and Jameson areas, faced opposition in its proposed route in
12445-451: The junction of Highway 427 and the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) in the west, for a total length of 18.0 kilometres (11.2 mi). East of Dufferin Street to just east of the Don River, the roadway is elevated for a length of 6.8 kilometres (4.2 mi), unofficially making it the longest bridge in Ontario. The Gardiner is named after the first chair of the now-defunct Metro Council , Frederick G. Gardiner . The six-lane section east of
12576-468: The lake shore for Parkdale neighbourhood residents to the north. Efforts made by community groups over the next 20 years to restore access to the lake shore, including plans to cover the section of the Expressway and railway line, did not come to fruition. A pedestrian bridge over Lake Shore Boulevard at the foot of Jameson Avenue was eventually built. Jameson Avenue, which had previously been a street of mansions, saw intense apartment building development after
12707-496: The land, which is owned by the Canadian National Railway. In the late 1980s, Metro Toronto proposed to widen the Gardiner to eight lanes from Strachan Avenue to the Humber, and extend Front Street from Bathurst Street west to connect with the highway. The widening proposal was never implemented as it depended on provincial funding which never materialized. Metro had planned the Front Street extension as part of allowing
12838-498: The large railroad yards that are needed for freight trains there, and also cross the multi-track railroad lines that are needed for heavy rail traffic. These viaducts provide grade separation and keep highway and city street traffic from having to be continually interrupted by the train traffic. Likewise, some viaducts carry railroads over large valleys, or they carry railroads over cities with many cross-streets and avenues. Many viaducts over land connect points of similar height in
12969-748: The late 1700s to the late 1800s, reminiscent of earlier designs in Germany and Switzerland. Some covered bridges were also built in Asia. In later years, some were partly made of stone or metal but the trusses were usually still made of wood; in the United States, there were three styles of trusses, the Queen Post, the Burr Arch and the Town Lattice. Hundreds of these structures still stand in North America. They were brought to
13100-464: The late 2nd century AD, when the Roman Empire built a 6-metre-wide (20 ft) wooden bridge to carry transport across the lake. Between 1358 and 1360, Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria , built a 'new' wooden bridge across the lake that was used until 1878; it was approximately 1,450 metres (4,760 ft) long and 4 metres (13 ft) wide. On 6 April 2001, a reconstruction of the original wooden footbridge
13231-427: The load is factored up by a factor greater than unity, while the resistance or capacity of the structure is factored down, by a factor less than unity. The effect of the factored load (stress, bending moment) should be less than the factored resistance to that effect. Both of these factors allow for uncertainty and are greater when the uncertainty is greater. Most bridges are utilitarian in appearance, but in some cases,
13362-425: The north-east corner of the CNE. The route to the east of the CNE was modified to avoid passing over historic Old Fort York. The Gardiner passes over some of the fort's property, and it is extra high to allow for possible multiple interchanges. East of Fort York, the Gardiner was built entirely as an elevated route, through a predominantly industrial area, to the south of railway lands to reach downtown. The roadway
13493-614: The obstacle, which is usually something that is otherwise difficult or impossible to cross. There are many different designs of bridges, each serving a particular purpose and applicable to different situations. Designs of bridges vary depending on factors such as the function of the bridge, the nature of the terrain where the bridge is constructed and anchored, the material used to make it, and the funds available to build it. The earliest bridges were likely made with fallen trees and stepping stones . The Neolithic people built boardwalk bridges across marshland. The Arkadiko Bridge , dating from
13624-413: The outer sections as well as a divider between westbound and eastbound traffic. At grade sections west of Bathurst Street use steel guard rails, but originally featured a narrow grass median. A public trail and activity space was built underneath the Gardiner, between Strachan and Spadina Avenue. Named after the Gardiner's main supports ( bents ), The Bentway uses bents to create 55 separate areas for
13755-629: The past, these load models were agreed by standard drafting committees of experts but today, this situation is changing. It is now possible to measure the components of bridge traffic load, to weigh trucks, using weigh-in-motion (WIM) technologies. With extensive WIM databases, it is possible to calculate the maximum expected load effect in the specified return period. This is an active area of research, addressing issues of opposing direction lanes, side-by-side (same direction) lanes, traffic growth, permit/non-permit vehicles and long-span bridges (see below). Rather than repeat this complex process every time
13886-468: The principles of Load and Resistance Factor Design . Before factoring to allow for uncertainty, the load effect is generally considered to be the maximum characteristic value in a specified return period . Notably, in Europe, it is the maximum value expected in 1000 years. Bridge standards generally include a load model, deemed to represent the characteristic maximum load to be expected in the return period. In
14017-490: The province downloaded most of Highway 2 which left both Lake Shore Boulevard and the Gardiner without a provincial route number). The westbound carriageway widens to four lanes thanks to the onramp from Lake Shore Boulevard becoming a continuous lane. As the route meets the west bank of the Humber River this marks the QEW's old eastern terminus and the beginning of the Metro Toronto-built segment. This old demarcation line
14148-742: The roadways and reduced movement of the upper level when the lower level was installed three decades after the upper level. The Tsing Ma Bridge and Kap Shui Mun Bridge in Hong Kong have six lanes on their upper decks, and on their lower decks there are two lanes and a pair of tracks for MTR metro trains. Some double-decked bridges only use one level for street traffic; the Washington Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis reserves its lower level for automobile and light rail traffic and its upper level for pedestrian and bicycle traffic (predominantly students at
14279-417: The route geometry of Lake Shore becomes complicated due to the interchange with the parallel Gardiner Expressway; as the two routes run right next to each other to the north near the Humber River crossing: The westbound lanes cross the Gardiner (running along the north side of it) and are intertwined with the ramp from the westbound expressway which meets the street opposite Brookers Lane after crossing back to
14410-698: The same year, has the span of 90 m (295 ft) and crosses the valley of the Syrabach River. The difference between the two is that the Solkan Bridge was built from stone blocks, whereas the Friedensbrücke was built from a mixture of crushed stone and cement mortar. The world's largest arch bridge is the Chaotianmen Bridge over the Yangtze River with a length of 1,741 m (5,712 ft) and
14541-637: The simplest and oldest type of bridge in use today, and are a popular type. Some cantilever bridges also have a smaller beam connecting the two cantilevers, for extra strength. The largest cantilever bridge is the 549-metre (1,801 ft) Quebec Bridge in Quebec, Canada. With the span of 220 metres (720 ft), the Solkan Bridge over the Soča River at Solkan in Slovenia is the second-largest stone bridge in
14672-406: The south are the neighbourhoods of Alderwood and Mimico . After the 1997 provincial downloading to Metro (which became the "Megacity" of Toronto in 1998), much of this former QEW has remained largely unchanged though some segments have received a mix of high mast and low masts with shaded high pressure sodium lamps (similar to the Don Valley Parkway ), while the old steel guardrail in the median
14803-421: The south side; although Lake Shore still has an overlapping two-way section east of this point entirely south of the Gardiner. The Lake Shore streetcar line runs along this segment for a short distance before leaving the street to enter Humber Loop via a short tunnel under the Gardiner. Lake Shore then briefly downgrades to a two-lane local street and then becomes one lane (and one way) eastbound as it merges with
14934-528: The streetcar in or out of Exhibition Place. GO Transit 's Exhibition train station is located under the Gardiner Expressway with tracks located on the north side of the Gardiner. To the east of Strachan Avenue, the highway is entirely elevated mostly overhead of Lake Shore Boulevard. Just east of Strachan, the highway passes historic Fort York on the north side and Coronation Park to the south. From Bathurst Street eastward to Spadina Avenue , it passes through CityPlace and immediately after passes south of
15065-742: The time of the Warring States period , the oldest surviving stone bridge in China is the Zhaozhou Bridge , built from 595 to 605 AD during the Sui dynasty . This bridge is also historically significant as it is the world's oldest open-spandrel stone segmental arch bridge. European segmental arch bridges date back to at least the Alconétar Bridge (approximately 2nd century AD), while the enormous Roman era Trajan's Bridge (105 AD) featured open-spandrel segmental arches in wooden construction. Rope bridges ,
15196-740: The undertimbers of bridges all around the world are spots of prevalent graffiti. Some bridges attract people attempting suicide, and become known as suicide bridges . The materials used to build the structure are also used to categorize bridges. Until the end of the 18th century, bridges were made out of timber, stone and masonry. Modern bridges are currently built in concrete, steel, fiber reinforced polymers (FRP), stainless steel or combinations of those materials. Living bridges have been constructed of live plants such as Ficus elastica tree roots in India and wisteria vines in Japan. Unlike buildings whose design
15327-460: The variation of strength found in natural stone. One type of cement, called pozzolana , consisted of water, lime , sand, and volcanic rock . Brick and mortar bridges were built after the Roman era , as the technology for cement was lost (then later rediscovered). In India, the Arthashastra treatise by Kautilya mentions the construction of dams and bridges. A Mauryan bridge near Girnar
15458-570: The waterfront, the Mr. Christie cookie factory (which later became a part of Mondelēz International ) and the Ontario Food Terminal on the north side. Two eastbound lanes exit to Lake Shore Boulevard as the eastbound carriageway narrows to three lanes, followed shortly by an onramp from Lake Shore Boulevard (which was also the point where the Gardiner previously assumed the provincial Highway 2 concurrency from Lake Shore Boulevard, until 1998 when
15589-433: The weld transitions . This results in a potential high benefit, using existing bridges far beyond the planned lifetime. While the response of a bridge to the applied loading is well understood, the applied traffic loading itself is still the subject of research. This is a statistical problem as loading is highly variable, particularly for road bridges. Load Effects in bridges (stresses, bending moments) are designed for using
15720-632: The word for the card game of the same name is unknown. The simplest and earliest types of bridges were stepping stones . Neolithic people also built a form of boardwalk across marshes ; examples of such bridges include the Sweet Track and the Post Track in England, approximately 6000 years old. Ancient people would also have used log bridges consisting of logs that fell naturally or were intentionally felled or placed across streams. Some of
15851-448: The world and the longest railroad stone bridge. It was completed in 1905. Its arch, which was constructed from over 5,000 tonnes (4,900 long tons; 5,500 short tons) of stone blocks in just 18 days, is the second-largest stone arch in the world, surpassed only by the Friedensbrücke (Syratalviadukt) in Plauen , and the largest railroad stone arch. The arch of the Friedensbrücke, which was built in
15982-403: Was built according to initial plans. The route in the Exhibition Place area changed over time from one along the lake shore into downtown, to one aligned along the railway north of Exhibition Place. The initial route east of Exhibition Place would have necessitated the moving or removal of Old Fort York, but was moved to a more southerly alignment after protest. The elevated section through downtown
16113-405: Was built directly overhead of Fleet Street (Fleet is now Lake Shore Boulevard West east of Bathurst but Fleet exists as parallel roadway on the north side from Bathurst to Strachan Avenue) through much of this section. The expressway off-ramp to York/Bay/Yonge Streets was developed as a two-lane eastbound 'finger' flying over Harbour Street, south of the main roadway, descending to Harbour Street with
16244-574: Was cancelled, no interchange was built in the area and the Highway 400 extension was never approved. Construction on the expressway began in 1955 with the building of The Queensway and the Keating Avenue (now Lake Shore Boulevard East) extension to the foot of Woodbine Avenue. The Gardiner was built in segments, with the final section being completed in 1966. The cost was approximately CA$ 110 million ($ 987 million in 2023 dollars) . Construction of
16375-538: Was delivered in April 1954. The roadway was to be constructed in the Sunnyside area and CNE grounds to the south of the present Lake Shore Boulevard. South of the CNE grounds, the route would be on lands created from infilling of the shoreline to the breakwaters and an interchange was proposed in front of the Prince's Gate. East of the CNE grounds, the highway would be an elevated roadway above the existing Fleet Street, to just west of
16506-519: Was opened; it is also the longest wooden bridge in Switzerland. The Arkadiko Bridge is one of four Mycenaean corbel arch bridges part of a former network of roads, designed to accommodate chariots , between the fort of Tiryns and town of Epidauros in the Peloponnese , in southern Greece . Dating to the Greek Bronze Age (13th century BC), it is one of the oldest arch bridges still in existence and use. Several intact, arched stone bridges from
16637-457: Was quite visible on the highway as a change in pavement quality and the use of different guardrail and lighting (since the late 1960s the province used truss poles originally fitted with mercury halide lamps before being replaced by high-pressure sodium in the 1990s, while Metro installed distinctive cobra-neck 30-foot (9.1 m) poles with fluorescent tubes that were since swapped for orange low-pressure sodium lamps in 1978). East of Brookers Lane,
16768-455: Was replaced by an Ontario "tall-wall" concrete barrier in 2007. Worn-out bilingual provincial signage has received unilingual replacements, while billboards which the province had long prohibited have been erected in proximity of the now-municipal freeway. East of Grand Avenue, the freeway crosses Park Lawn Road and a CN rail line, then it curves as it passes the residential condominium towers of The Queensway – Humber Bay neighbourhood along
16899-510: Was surveyed by James Princep . The bridge was swept away during a flood, and later repaired by Puspagupta, the chief architect of emperor Chandragupta I . The use of stronger bridges using plaited bamboo and iron chain was visible in India by about the 4th century. A number of bridges, both for military and commercial purposes, were constructed by the Mughal administration in India. Although large bridges of wooden construction existed in China at
17030-448: Was then aligned over the existing Lake Shore Boulevard in the area. East of downtown, the initial plans were for a ground-level route east to Woodbine, but this was changed in conjunction with the planning of the interchange of the Don Valley Parkway into downtown from the north to an elevated section east to Leslie Street. Various routes to the east were proposed, but never progressed beyond planning studies due to public protest. Plans for
17161-511: Was tolled and instead would use the bypass instead. H. M. Bishop of the Ontario Motor League also criticized the toll highway saying if it was tolled it would "hardly see a car all day long. The net result would be to increase, not decrease, congestion on city streets." Toronto Board of Control abandoned the project in July 1952, stating that it would need additional funds not forthcoming from the Ontario government. In July 1953, prior to
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