Fremantle’s new Walyalup Bridge opened to the public on 1 November, four months ahead of schedule, with thousands of people walking the 500-metre Swan River crossing before it took its first cars that evening. The bridge cost $596 million, more than double the original estimate, and replaces the 86-year-old heritage-listed traffic bridge that closed in February.
ABC News reported up to 15,000 people were expected to cross on foot during the opening celebration, which ran with bands, musicians and a ribbon cutting by Transport Minister Rita Saffioti, Federal Member for Fremantle Josh Wilson and State Member for Fremantle Simone McGurk. It is the fifth traffic bridge on the site. The first was built by convicts in the mid-1800s.
The woman who crossed it in 1939 and again this weekend
Gladys Arundel was among the first across the new deck, 87 years after she walked the 1939 bridge at its opening as a 14-year-old schoolgirl.
“We were in high school just down the road and they decided we would all walk down here for the opening … it was very exciting,” she told the ABC.
“I am very thrilled to be repeating history.”
Also in the crowd was Jan Middleton, who the ABC reported survived a 10-metre plunge off the old bridge in her car 70 years ago.
Built around the bridge it was replacing
The engineering story is the one worth the attention on site. The old timber crossing stayed up while the new structure went in around it, then came down progressively as the replacement took shape. That’s a sequencing job as much as a building job: demolition and construction sharing the same airspace, the same river, the same barge access, with a heritage-listed structure as the thing you’re working around rather than the thing you’re knocking over.
Some of that old timber didn’t go to landfill. Ms Saffioti said history was front of mind in the handover.
“There has been some wood that’s been preserved including the timber decking … and some of the pylons have been incorporated into the artwork,” she said.
For anyone who has pulled apart old jarrah structures, that’s the difference between demolition and deconstruction: slower, more hand work, more care at every fixing, because the material coming out has a second life. The 1939 bridge was built with a 40-year design life and stood for 86.
The ABC reported the new structure is the first “extra-dosed” bridge built in Australia, combining both cantilevers and cable stay supports. Broadly, an extradosed deck sits between the two families: squat towers over the piers, stay cables fanning down into a deck that still carries most of the load itself, rather than the tall masts and long cables of a full cable-stayed span.
It has the same number of traffic lanes as the old bridge, wider pedestrian paths, and more clearance underneath for boats.
Twelve months of programme done in about eight
Construction was expected to take 12 months and finished roughly four months early. That’s the number subbies will notice. Eight months on the tools instead of twelve means cranes, barges, plant and crews roll off to the next job a third of a year ahead of the bar chart, and the tail of standby, demob and site establishment costs gets cut with it.
It also means a chunk of WA bridge-experienced labour, formworkers, steel fixers, riggers and concreters among them, came back onto the market earlier than anyone had pencilled in.
Ms Saffioti put the cost growth down mainly to the redesign.
“We attempted a number of solutions … the version before the final version had a complete reconfiguration of all the roads, that would have disrupted traffic for years,” she said.
“We came up with a method that disrupted the community the least, that delivered the best outcome.”
On the closure itself, which left Stirling Bridge as the only crossing from February, the minister said the disruption landed softer than forecast.
“We managed to move people throughout this area with some delays but not anywhere near what people were expecting,” she said.
The government changed traffic signals and turning lanes, added train and bus services, opened more free parking bays for SmartRider users and lifted CCTV monitoring of traffic. Local businesses on both sides of the river had warned of serious economic damage. The ABC reported some have since closed, others saw a drop in customer numbers, and some found the closure less painful than feared.
Cyclists’ group says the north end is the flaw
Not everyone is cheering the design. The Cyclists’ Action Group has condemned the new bridge as “the most unsafe design for pedestrians, cyclists and mothers with prams built over the rivers near Perth since at least 1980”.
“the most unsafe design for pedestrians, cyclists and mothers with prams built over the rivers near Perth since at least 1980”
“The major design flaw is the lack of a grade-separated crossing under the north end of the bridge for vulnerable road users to cross Queen Victoria Street safely,” the group said in a statement.
That criticism is about what happens where the bridge lands, not the span itself, and it is the kind of thing that tends to come back as a retrofit package later: an underpass, a signalised crossing, or works to the approach road. Anyone chasing civil work in Fremantle should keep an eye on whether that north-end crossing turns into a separate scope.
For now, the crossing is open, and the next question for the trade is what the WA pipeline hands those crews next. Project details and future works are published through Main Roads WA. Worth watching too is where the salvaged 1939 jarrah ends up, because reclaimed structural timber of that age and size doesn’t come onto the market often.
Frequently asked questions
Why did the Walyalup Bridge cost more than planned?
Transport Minister Rita Saffioti said the cost growth came mainly from a redesign. An earlier option would have reconfigured all the surrounding roads and disrupted traffic for years, so engineers chose a method that caused less disruption to the community.
What is an extradosed bridge?
It’s a design that sits between a cantilever bridge and a full cable-stayed bridge: squat towers over the piers with stay cables fanning down into a deck that still carries most of the load itself. The Walyalup Bridge is the first of this type built in Australia.
What happened to the old 1939 Fremantle bridge?
The heritage-listed timber bridge stayed standing while the new structure was built around it, then came down progressively as the replacement took shape. Some of the timber decking and pylons have been preserved and incorporated into artwork rather than sent to landfill.
Sourced from ABC News. Original article.
