West Gate Bridge
- 37.829708144.898412Koordinaten: 37 ° 49 ' 46.9 "S, 144 ° 53' 54.3 " E
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The West Gate Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge in Melbourne. It spans the Yarra River just before it flows into Port Phillip and links downtown with the industrial areas to the west of the city. The West Gate Bridge is the third longest bridge in Australia: with a total length of 2582.6 m, it is twice as long as the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The longest span is 336 m, the height above the Yarra 58 m.
Traffic
The bridge has four lanes in each direction to and is used daily by about 165,000 vehicles. Pedestrians and cyclists must not use the building. For them, there is a ferry available during the peak traffic times wrong on call during the week and runs all day on weekends and holidays.
History
The first plans for a bridge near the mouth of the Yarra, there were already 1957. The rapid development of Melbourne made a new crossing of the river necessary to accommodate the additional traffic. In 1966, the work was begun with the first test drilling. The end of the construction work was scheduled for the end of 1970.
Accident
On October 15, 1970 at 11:50 the 112 m long bridge girder between piers 10 and 11 failed, he fell into the river and the shore area, where 35 workers were killed. The part that did not fall into the water, rushed directly to the workers' housing, where many workers were staying during lunch break. Some deaths were during the accident on or in the box girder. The impact of the 2000 -ton segment shook buildings hundreds of meters away.
An accident cause a faulty design and the unusual approach during the construction was called. The segments of the hollow box are created in two halves on the ground, lifted into position and screwed together. Day of the accident, the two half segments could not be screwed together because one due to an assembly error had a 11.4 cm higher bias than the other. It was decided to charge the higher -lying segment with 800 t, which was accomplished by laying of 10 concrete blocks. Under the additional weight of the Halbsegement began to deform and it caused bumps. When the Längsverschraubung the two halves segment was partially completed, was ordered to remove the bumps. After a portion of the coil was dissolved again failed congested components and applied to the carrier to collapse.
Today, the West Gate Bridge Memorial commemorates the workers who died in this accident died.
The bridge was completed after ten years of construction in 1978 as part of the Westgate Freeway. The construction costs amounted to 202 million AUD and should be compensated for by a toll, but this was abolished in 1985.
Future
Because of the rising traffic in Melbourne there are considerations to widen the bridge to tunnel under the river or to provide the bridge with a second plane. It was decided that at peak times five lanes in one direction and release the other three. 2006 plans became known, according to which a tunnel to relieve the bridge to be created.