Rising more than 16 metres above the River Derwent, Tasmania’s new $786 million Bridgewater Bridge is just two weeks away from opening to traffic.
Premier Jeremy Rockliff today toured the site, inspecting final touches on what is the biggest transport infrastructure project in the state’s history.
Pulse joined Rockliff, Infrastructure Minister Kerry Vincent and project leaders atop the nearly completed structure to mark the final stage of the two-plus year construction effort.
“It feels fantastic. It feels actually quite historic to be here after 900 days of construction,” the Premier told Pulse.
“Tasmanians have watched this with great interest. They’ve been proud of each and every person, irrespective of the role they played.”
The bridge will open in full on June 2 after a community celebration event the day before, with traffic to flow at its intended speed of 80km/h from day one.
Minister Vincent said the decision to delay a staged opening was made late last year to allow crews uninterrupted access to the bridge deck.
“A very sensible decision was made back before Christmas to put that off for a while to allow the workers to have full access to the full working deck to get it done quicker and more efficiently,” he said.
The project has meant a lot to the local area, with many of the hundreds of workers involved hailing from Bridgewater and Brighton.
“It really means that people are getting work and more importantly, they’re getting the pride and ownership of what we’re doing here. And that’s really, really special for everybody who’s involved,” said Peter, a representative of the construction team.
The Premier said the bridge stands as a symbol of what Tasmania can achieve, comparing it to iconic state infrastructure like hydroelectric dams.
“It’s fantastic that a new generation of Tasmanians can see what Tasmania is capable of,” Rockliff said.
“We’ve had our hydro industrialisation, we’ve had our hydro dams, we’ve got the Tasman Bridge. There are great infrastructure projects over the generations that we can be very, very proud of.”
And it’s far from the last of Tasmania’s ambitious infrastructure plans. The state government has announced a $30 billion pipeline of infrastructure projects over the next 10 years.
“The next big project, of course, is the stadium at Macquarie Point,” Rockliff said.
“That will have a transfer of jobs in number, if you like, from 1,000 jobs here, of course, but the stadium infrastructure at Macquarie Point will be a 4,000-job opportunity.”
“So we’re going from one great project to another great project of enabling infrastructure that Tasmanians, I know, will be equally proud of.”
Plans are also in place for the old Bridgewater Bridge, the structure of which will be removed to allow vessels to pass underneath.
“Parts of it will stay as part of the causeway so that we remember what it is,” Minister Vincent said.
“Part of the causeway development will be to open up to the public so that we can celebrate the lives of some of the people that have been involved in developing the bridges in the past.”
For the construction crew, crossing the finish line brings a huge sense of pride.
“I was talking to one of our guys just yesterday and he turned around and just said, ‘we made it,'” Project Director Peter Fraser said.
“I think that really sums up what we’ve done. We’ve made this thing and we’ve actually got to the end of the job and everybody is extraordinarily proud of what we’re doing.”
When asked how he would be celebrating the bridge’s opening day, Fraser smiled. “I’ll be having a quiet whisky with my wife,” he said.
