Don't Replace Our Bridge!

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Blue Bridge, Victoria

Watercolour, crayon and ink

©2009 Charlene Brown

This double lifting span bridge between Vic West and downtown Victoria was designed by Joseph Strauss, who also designed the Golden Gate suspension bridge in San Francisco. The narrower span has a rail line and a bicycle lane, and the wider span has three car lanes and a pedestrian walkway. When the bridge opens, the spans are moved one at a time – the rail span goes up first, and when it is all the way up, the car span is lifted. They are lowered in the reverse order, to minimize the delay for cars and pedestrians. This picture shows the bridge just after the lowering process has begun. We sometimes complain about it being opened every time someone takes a notion to sail over to the Upper Harbour, but now that they're talking about replacing it with a higher span, we've all grown quite fond of our 85-year-old bottleneck.