Engineering News- Record | Project Of The Year Finalist And Best Bridge/Tunnel: Canal Lachine Cable Stay Bridge

Special projects are built from good decisions, and the Canal Lachine cable stayed bridge—the symbolic centerpiece of the $1.3-billion Turcot Interchange reconstruction project in Montreal—is such a project.

Matthias Schueller, practice leader for long span bridges at Parsons, which was part of a design-build team hired by the Quebec Ministry of Transportation, had to make several key decisions about design concepts and details. One involved the extradosed design and structural plan for supporting the curving bridge deck: the solution was multiple mini box girders tied together to one very large steel grillage system. He says the design constraints meant that the girders and deck grillage had to bridge a 289-ft-long main span with only a 6.6-ft-deep girder along the deck’s inner curve.