Watch Ontario's record-breaking bridge to US take shape in impressive timelapse
The longest cable-stayed bridge in North America is gearing up to cross a long-awaited milestone when the two halves of the gigantic infrastructure investment meet over the Detroit River between Ontario and Michigan.
Named the Gordie Howe International Bridge in honour of the hockey legend, the newest crossing over the traffic-plagued Detroit-Windsor border is expected to relieve congestion by closing a missing transportation link between Ontario’s Highway 401 and Michigan’s I-75.
Excitement about the record-breaking link has been steadily building as US and Canadian crews work in tandem on opposite sides of the river, and the long-anticipated milestone where both sides of the bridge connect is expected to occur in the coming months.
Though that milestone is still just around the corner, a new timelapse video is laying out the impressive progress crews have achieved in over two years since the enormous bridge began to rise above the river.
Construction on the international bridge has been ongoing since October 2018, staffed by nearly 4,000 workers operating on opposite sides of the Detroit River, though it wasn’t until mid-2022 that the enormous 140-metre-tall support towers began to draw international attention.
Now, over two years later, the bridge is finally on the home stretch to structural completion.
Towards the end of the timelapse video, the project’s most recent milestone can be witnessed in the removal of falsework supports installed to prop up the under-construction road deck.
Eighteen falsework bents were installed early on in the bridge’s construction — nine on either side of the river — and removed early in March. This removal resulted in a visible shifting of the bridge deck as its load was transferred from the removed falsework below to the cable stays above.
The moment of this transfer is evident at approximately the 3:25 mark of the timelapse video, where the road deck settles under the support of the cable-stayed tower above. A total of 216 stay cables will be installed by the time the bridge is complete. As of mid-March 98 of the 108 stay cables on each tower had been installed.
The final 20 seconds of the clip shows the two halves of the bridge gradually working their way towards a central meeting point over the river, a momentous milestone expected to occur this summer when US and Canadian crews ceremonially join the two sections to form one structurally complete bridge.
The bridge’s lead design and construction engineer, Ankur Singh, revealed in a video earlier in March that the two halves will be connected by a custom piece called “a midspan closure piece, which is specifically designed, approximately 11 metres long.”
As of March 12, only 140 metres separated the US and Canadian sides of the bridge, a gap that has continued to shrink in the weeks since.
The structural completion of this enormous infrastructure upgrade is not quite the final step before traffic can reroute over the river, and Singh explained that, despite “the excitement of the public who want to come and drive and be part of this historical project, […] it won’t be ready for public right away.”
“Once the bridge connects in the middle, that kicks off the next phase of the construction activity and the finishing works,” he continued.
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