Cable-Stayed Bridges - Alex Fraser Bridge (3)

The Alex Fraser (Annacis) Bridge was the world's longest cable-stayed bridge when it was completed (with a main span of 1525 ft). Now its the 32nd longest cable-stayed bridge in the world.  There must be a flurry of big bridge building when a country's economy suddenly blossoms. Japan was building the longest bridges in the 1990s and China is in the early 21st century.

This is another composite steel and concrete bridge designed by Buckland and Taylor. They must feel they have a competitive edge on this kind of structure (it was completed in only 31 months). It was built as two balanced cantilevers in 30 ft increments until the two structures became one. The cables are distributed along the arms of the 'H' shaped towers and support the superstructure in a semi-fan arrangement. The cables support the 6.6 ft deep steel frame with precast deck slabs placed on the flanges and made continuous with a closure pour.

I heard that this bridge was having maintenance problems. I hope the deterioration is minor or that it can be repaired. It is a very elegant looking structure and you can see it for miles above the surrounding landscape.

Cable-Stayed Bridges - Alex Fraser Bridge (3) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.