November 14, 1938
After two days of being made available exclusively for pedestrians to cross, the newly completed Lions Gate Bridge in the Canadian province of British Columbia was first opened to vehicular traffic.
This suspension bridge traverses the First Narrows of Burrard Inlet and links the city of Vancouver with the North Shore municipalities of West Vancouver, the City of North Vancouver, and the District of North Vancouver. This structure — officially called the First Narrows Bridge — owes its most popular name to the Lions, a pair of pointed mountain peaks in that region of Canada.
Construction on the Lions Gate Bridge began on March 31, 1937. A couple of the more distinctive features of this structure, however, were not put in place there until January 1939. These were the pair of cast concrete lions (appearing in the attached photo taken in 2012) on the south approach to the bridge. The lions were designed by sculptor Charles Marega (1871-1939), who died shortly after both had been installed at the bridge.
The Lions Gate Bridge was formally dedicated more than six months after it had first gone into service. The Vancouver Sun reported that, as part of those inaugural festivities, “a cavalcade of motorcars crossed the bridge with all the official dignity of a slow march and then the guests of the contractors and the bridge company repaired to the clubhouse of the Capilano Country Club [in West Vancouver], where there were a few speeches and the toasts which naturally go with opening great structures.”
Measuring a total of 5,981 feet (1,823 meters) in length, the three-lane Lions Gate Bridge carries Highways 1A and 99. This bridge, which also accommodates both pedestrians and bicycles, was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 2005. In addition, the Lions Gate Bridge has made at least two big-screen appearances — in the 2010 science fiction action film Tron: Legacy; and the 2011 supernatural horror movie Final Destination 5.
Photo Credit: bynyalcin (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
For more information on bridges in Canada, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridges_in_Canada
Transportation History 