Hoare had never worked on a cantilever bridge structure longer than 300 ft. Hoare was selected as Chief Engineer for the Company throughout this time, while Collingwood Schreiber was the Chief Engineer of the Department of Railways and Canals in Ottawa. Laurier was MP for Quebec East riding, while the president of the QBRC, Simon-Napoleon Parent, was Quebec City's mayor from 1894 to 1906, and simultaneously served as Premier of Quebec from 1900 to 1905. An Act of Parliament the same year was necessary to guarantee the bonds by the public purse. In 1903, the bond issue was increased to $6,000,000 and power to grant preference shares was authorised, along with a name change to the Quebec Bridge and Railway Company (QBRC).
Macdonald in 1887, later revived in 1891, and revived for good in 1897 by the government of Wilfrid Laurier, who granted them an extension of time in 1900. The Quebec Bridge Company was first incorporated by Act of Parliament under the government of Sir John A. The Quebec Bridge was included in the National Transcontinental Railway project, undertaken by the federal government. It would be very nice to have, with its double track, electric car track, and roads for vehicles and pedestrians, and would no doubt create a goodly traffic between the two towns, and be one of the show works of the continent. A bridge at Diamond Harbor would, it estimated, cost at least eight millions. It would still do so if it appeared that our people could have it at that site. Many of our people have objected to any contribution being given by the city unless the bridge is built opposite the town, and the CHRONICLE like every other good citizen of Quebec would prefer to see it constructed at Diamond Harbor, and has contended in the interests of the city for this site as long as there seemed to be any possibility of securing it there. Both Federal and Provincial Governments seem disposed to contribute towards the cost, and the City of Quebec will also be expected to do its share. The bridge question has again been revived after many years of slumber, and business men in Quebec seem hopeful that something will come of it, though the placing of a subsidy on the statute book is but a small part of the work to be accomplished, as some of its enthusiastic promoters will, ere long, discover. He led the push to build the Quebec Bridge until he left office in 1911.Ī March 1897 article in the Quebec Morning Chronicle noted: After a period of political instability, during which Canada had four Prime Ministers in five years, Wilfrid Laurier, Member of Parliament for the federal riding of Quebec East, was elected on a Liberal platform in 1896. It was further discussed in 1867, 1882, and 1884. Lawrence River at Quebec was considered as early as 1852. The construction of a bridge over the St. Lawrence in Lévis to the north shore at Quebec City was to take a ferry or use the winter-time ice bridge. 7 Corrosion and maintenance controversyīefore the Quebec Bridge was built, the only way to travel from the south shore of the St.3 Second design and collapse of September 11, 1916.2 First design and collapse of August 29, 1907.The Quebec Bridge was designated a National Historic Site in 1995. Since 1993, it has been owned by the Canadian National Railway. At one time, it also carried a streetcar line. The bridge accommodates three highway lanes (there were none until 1929, when one was added another was added in 1949 and a third in 1993), one rail line (two until 1949), and a pedestrian walkway (originally two). (It was the all-categories longest span in the world until the Ambassador Bridge was completed in 1929.) It is the easternmost (farthest downstream) complete crossing of the Saint Lawrence River. Cantilever arms 177 m (581 ft) long support a 195 m (640 ft) central structure, for a total span of 549 m (1,801 ft), still the longest cantilever bridge span in the world. The Quebec Bridge is a riveted steel truss structure and is 987 m (3,238 ft) long, 29 m (95 ft) wide, and 104 m (341 ft) high. It took more than 30 years to complete and eventually opened in 1919. The project failed twice during its construction, in 19, at the cost of 88 lives and additional persons injured. The Quebec Bridge ( French: pont de Québec) is a road, rail, and pedestrian bridge across the lower Saint Lawrence River between Sainte-Foy (a former suburb that in 2002 became a western area of Quebec City) and Lévis, in Quebec, Canada.