Samuel-De Champlain Bridge

Samuel-De Champlain Bridge Pont Samuel-De Champlain (French)
Samuel-De Champlain Bridge as viewed from Brossard in July 2019
Coordinates	45°28′10″N 73°30′58″W / 45.46944°N 73.51611°W / 45.46944; -73.51611
Carries	8 lanes (4 northwestbound, 4 southeastbound) of A-10 / A-15 / A-20 2 tracks used by the REM
Crosses	St. Lawrence River and Saint Lawrence Seaway
Locale	Brossard and Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Owner	The Jacques Cartier and Champlain Bridges Inc.
Maintained by	The Jacques Cartier and Champlain Bridges Inc.
Website	www.newchamplain.ca
Characteristics
Design	Cable-stayed bridge
Material	Steel, Concrete
Total length	3,400 m (11,155 ft)
Width	60 m (196.85 ft)
Height	170 m (557.74 ft)
Longest span	240 m (787.40 ft)
Clearance below	38.5 metres (126 ft)
Design life	125 years
History
Architect	Poul Ove Jensen
Designer	T.Y. Lin International
Constructed by	SNC-Lavalin, ACS Group, Dragados Canada
Construction start	2015
Construction end	2019
Construction cost	$4.2 billion[1]
Opened	June 24, 2019 (2019-06-24) (northbound/westbound span)[2] July 1, 2019 (2019-07-01) (southbound/eastbound span)[3]
Inaugurated	June 28, 2019; 5 years ago (2019-06-28)[4]
Replaces	Champlain Bridge, Montreal (1962–2019)
Statistics
Daily traffic	159,000
Location

The Samuel-De Champlain Bridge, colloquially known as the Champlain Bridge, is a cable-stayed bridge design by architect Poul Ove Jensen and built to replace the original Champlain Bridge over the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec, between Nuns' Island in the borough of Verdun in Montreal and the suburban city of Brossard on the South Shore. A second, connected bridge links Nuns' Island to the main Island of Montreal. It is the busiest bridge in the country with more cars flowing into it than any other bridge.^{[citation needed]}

The new span is located just north of the location of the original Champlain Bridge, demolition of which began as soon as the new bridge was completed. The new bridge carries eight lanes of automobile traffic of the A-10, A-15, and A-20, with one lane in each direction dedicated for buses. It also includes a multi-use lane for cyclists and pedestrians. The central portion of the bridge deck carries the South Shore branch of the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) automated light metro system.^[5] At 60 metres (200 ft) wide, the new Bridge is the widest cable-stayed bridge in the world that uses two planes of cables.^[6]

It is one of the largest infrastructure projects ever built in North America and with an estimated 59 million vehicles a year, one of the busiest crossings on the continent.^[7] It is built to last 125 years with the usage of stainless steel and high-performance concrete,^[8] and replaces the previous 57-year-old bridge,^[9] which had become functionally obsolete, as well as its structure having been degraded by the repeated application of de-icing salt.