Bridge beauty

>> Why the Jacques-Cartier is considered the jewel of Montreal's bridges

by PHILIP PREVILLE

 Living on an island usually means living in seclusion, the water on all sides disconnecting inhabitants from the rest of the world and all of modernity. Like Newfoundland, for example. But the island of Montreal is connected on all sides by no less than 15 bridges. And while the Victoria was once considered a wonder of the world, the Jacques-Cartier span, since it opened in May of 1930, has been considered Montreal's finest bridge.

 A) The Jacques-Cartier looks like a suspension bridge but, technically, it's not. Instead of being suspended by cables, the Jacques-Cartier is held aloft by a steel superstructure. Many steel superstructures look like randomly connected I-beam mazes, steel tumours sprouting from the concrete; the architectural beauty of the Jacques-Cartier lies in the fact that the bridge's 33,267 metric tons of steel manage to mimic the elegance of a cable-suspended bridge.

 B) That susperstructure's sole purpose is to hold aloft the 13,000 cubic yards of concrete that make up the bridge's deck. In the course of a single year, over 43 million cars will make trips across that deck, or an average of 117,808 per day. That makes the Jacques-Cartier the second-most-congested bridge in Canada. (The most-congested happens to be Montreal's Champlain bridge, but that's a Thing for another day.) The Jacques-Cartier bridge cost $20 million to build and was paid for by a toll; the toll booths lasted for 32 years before being torn down on June 1, 1962 at 3 p.m.

 Final factoid: The bridge features an old-fashioned hollow cornerstone in the pillar at Notre-Dame and de Lorimier. Laid amid much pomp and ceremony on August 9, 1926, the cornerstone contains such miscellany as the August 7, 1926 editions of the Gazette, the Star, La Presse and Le Devoir, a $5 gold coin from 1925 and a copy of the Annual Report of the Montreal Sailors' Institute. But the cornerstone's not marked, so no one really knows exactly where it is--and no one will ever find out unless the bridge is demolished. :

 

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