TORONTO—The two newest additions to Toronto’s Port Lands bridges, the Cherry Street North and Commissioners Street Bridges, are now open to vehicle, pedestrian and cyclist traffic.
The opening signifies a major step in the redevelopment of 500 acres of once underutilized land.
Waterfront Toronto’s Port Lands Flood Protection Enabling Infrastructure project called for innovative bridges to be placed over current and future waterways in the area, states a release. The bridges, which are central to the $1.3 billion revitalization and regeneration effort, were designed by Entuitive, schlaich bergermann partner and Grimshaw Architects.
Input was also received from Waterfront Toronto and construction manager EllisDon, who led the construction process from fabrication to erection.
The bridges were designed as “an esthetically unified family of four and showcase innovative fabrication techniques alongside state-of-the-art engineering.”
The single-span Cherry Street North Road and LRT Bridges and the four-span Commissioners Street Bridge join the previously opened Cherry Street South Bridge which opened in October 2022 and is a three-span bridge that crosses the new mouth of the Don River on the west side of Villiers Island.
According to the release, the design team arrived at a hybrid shell-arch bridge structure, essentially curved-tied arches with a planar deck connected by hangers. The self-anchoring curved-tied arch maximizes the material efficiency, reduces cost and creates vertical reaction forces which reduce the size and complexity of the foundations. This was a key design consideration since the soil in the industrial area is contaminated and of poor quality and supporting foundations and piers were also limited by the site’s flood protection plan.
The team on the project includes Waterfront Toronto (project owner); Grimshaw Architects (architect firm); schlaich bergermann partner (preliminary structural design); Entuitive (structural engineer); EllisDon (general contractor); Cherubini Bridges & Structures (fabricator); Tenca Steel Detailing Inc. (detailer); ES Fox Ltd. (erector); Harbourside Engineering Consultants (erection engineer);Thurber Engineering Ltd. (geotechnical engineer); Planmac Engineering Inc. (civil engineer); and Mulvaney & Banani Lighting Inc. (electrical and lighting).
Recent Comments
comments for this post are closed