West Gate Bridge
The West Gate Bridge is a 10-lane dual-carriageway freeway bridge, carrying five lanes of motor vehicle traffic in each direction. The main river span is 336 metres in length, and the height above the water is 58 metres. It is the fifth-longest in Australia, the longest being Melbourne’s Bolte Bridge at 5 kilometres. The Westgate Punt is a foot ferry that runs directly below the bridge, taking cyclists and pedestrians across the Yarra.
About West Gate Bridge in brief
The West Gate Bridge is a 10-lane dual-carriageway freeway bridge, carrying five lanes of motor vehicle traffic in each direction. The main river span is 336 metres in length, and the height above the water is 58 metres. The total length of the bridge is 2,582. 6 metres. It is the fifth-longest in Australia, the longest being Melbourne’s Bolte Bridge at 5 kilometres. The bridge is rather windswept as there are no significant obstructing terrain features for some distance, particularly in the quadrant from south to west. This can lead to issues for motorbikes, trucks and other high-sided vehicles in higher wind speeds, a common occurrence on this bridge. The Westgate Punt is a foot ferry that runs directly below the bridge, taking cyclists and pedestrians across the Yarra between a jetty at Fishermans Bend near Westgate Park – Bay Trail. It operates on demand, from Monday to Friday in morning and evening peaks, and on weekends and public holidays from 10: 00 am to 5:00 pm. It was originally tolled. Tolls were abolished in 1985, because drivers were using other routes to avoid the toll. It is constantly busy due to the number and type of vehicles coming in and out of Melbourne Port of Melbourne. Thirty-five construction workers were killed and 18 injured, and it remains Australia’s worst industrial accident to this day. The cause of the collapse has been attributed to two causes: the structural design by Fox & Partners and an unusual method of construction by World Services and Construction, the original contractors of the project.
The current practice now is to reduce speed limit to 40 kmh when the wind speed gets too high. Cyclists are prohibited from using the bridge except for special bicycle events, notably the MS Summer cycle, which is a fundraising event for multiple sclerosis, and the Around the Bay in a Day Bicycle Network event that raises money for The Smith Family charity. The only main direct link between Melbourne’s CBD and the West, it is frequently congested during the morning and afternoon peaks. The whole 2,000-tonne mass plummeted into the Yarrra River mud with an explosion of gas, dust and mangled metal that shook buildings hundreds of metres away. The roar of the impact, the explosion and the fire that followed, could be clearly heard over 20 kilometres away. A Royal Commission into the collapse was established, which concluded on 14 July 1971, and concluded that one half-girders at the west end of the span needed to be joined to be higher. The Prime Minister, John Gorton, said: I am sure the whole of Australia is shocked and saddened by the serious accident at the West Gate bridge. Please extend my deepest sympathy to all those families to whom this tragic event has brought such grief to. It was proposed that a higher camber of 11.5 metres was proposed to be added to the bridge.
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This page is based on the article West Gate Bridge published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 23, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
