May 6, 2015
In the state of Western Australia (WA), a bridge in the suburb of Maylands was officially opened. (Maylands is about 2.8 miles [4.5 kilometers] northeast of Perth, the capital city of WA.) This vehicular bridge carries Seventh Avenue in Maylands over both a segment of the Midland line, a suburban rail service that is part of the WA-based public transportation network known as Transperth; and a portion of Whatley Crescent, a major street and commercial strip.
The Seventh Avenue Bridge was built to replace a bridge that had been in operation since 1913. Construction on the new bridge began in April 2014. The original bridge was demolished early the following year.
Dean Nalder (born in 1966), who was WA’s minister for transport from 2014 to 2016, presided at the inaugural ceremony for the current version of the Seventh Avenue Bridge. He used this occasion to pay tribute to the longtime bridge that the new one was replacing.
“This new 80-metre [262.5-foot bridge, carrying about 3,500 vehicles a day, is built on the same footprint as the original 1913 timber bridge,” said Nalder. “The old bridge served us well for more than 100 years.”
In addition, Nalder noted how the new bridge provided extra clearance over Whatley Crescent and a wide path for use by pedestrians and cyclists. (The accompanying photo of the present-day version of the Seventh Avenue Bridge was taken in 2021.)
Photo Credit: Steelkamp (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)
For more information on the Seventh Avenue Bridge and its predecessor, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh_Avenue_Bridge
Transportation History 
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