Burlington Bay James N. Allan Skyway
Encyclopedia
The Burlington Bay James N. Allan Skyway, originally called the Burlington Bay Skyway, is a pair of high-level
Skyway (disambiguation)
Skyway is a suspended covered walkway between buildings.Skyway may also refer to:* In air travel, a flight path common to many airline flights* Skyways Limited, a post-war British airline which became Skyways International in 1971...

 freeway bridges located in Hamilton
Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...

 and Burlington
Burlington, Ontario
Burlington , is a city located in Halton Region at the western end of Lake Ontario. Burlington is part of the Greater Toronto Area, and is also included in the Hamilton Census Metropolitan Area. Physically, Burlington lies between the north shore of Lake Ontario and the Niagara Escarpment...

, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. The Skyway, as it's locally known, is part of the Queen Elizabeth Way
Queen Elizabeth Way
The Queen Elizabeth Way, commonly abbreviated as the QEW, is a 400-Series highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. The freeway links Buffalo, New York and the Niagara Peninsula with Toronto. It begins at the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie and travels around the western shore of Lake Ontario, ending...

 (QEW) highway linking Fort Erie
Fort Erie, Ontario
Fort Erie is a town on the Niagara River in the Niagara Region, Ontario, Canada. It is located directly across the river from Buffalo, New York....

 with Toronto.

The first bridge (steel structure) was completed in 1958 and officially opened 30 October 1958, crossing the narrow bar separating Burlington Bay
Burlington Bay
Burlington Bay, known more commonly as Hamilton Harbour, lies on the western tip of Lake Ontario, bounded on the northwest by the City of Burlington, on the south by the City of Hamilton, and on the east by Hamilton Beach and Burlington Beach...

 from Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south by the American state of New York. Ontario, Canada's most populous province, was named for the lake. In the Wyandot language, ontarío means...

. This allows for Great Lakes
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...

 ship traffic to flow underneath while four lanes of Golden Horseshoe
Golden Horseshoe
The Golden Horseshoe is a densely populated and industrialized region centred around the Greater Toronto Area at the western end of Lake Ontario in Southern Ontario, Canada, with outer boundaries stretching south to Lake Erie and north to Georgian Bay. Most of it is also part of the Quebec City...

 road traffic may flow on top of it, neither disturbing the other. The bridge was designed by John Turner Bell.

The bridge had tolls when constructed, but these were removed 28 December 1973 after they were found to heavily impede traffic flow. Truck drivers in particular had refused to take the tolled bridge since not only were they charged the full toll but also it took them extra fuel to ascend the Skyway. With the lifting of tolls on the bridge, trucks were then banned from using Beach Boulevard
Beach Boulevard (Hamilton, Ontario)
Beach Boulevard is a Lower city street in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, north of the Hamilton Harbour on a thin piece of land that crosses over Lake Ontario and stretches from where Woodward Avenue becomes Eastport Drive in the east to near the Lift Bridge in the west at Eastport Drive . It runs...

.

When traffic volume became more than the bridge could accommodate in the early eighties, the bridge was twinned. When the new skyway (concrete structure) was opened on 11 October 1985, traffic was temporarily rerouted to it so that the old bridge could be extensively rehabilitated and this work was completed 22 August 1988. Afterwards, there were eight lanes of traffic crossing the harbour.
The twinning project also saw a major upgrade of the freeway approaches to the bridge. The entire project resulted in the QEW being widened to eight lanes from Burlington Street to Highway 403, with modern Parclo interchange
Parclo interchange
A partial cloverleaf interchange or parclo is a modification of a cloverleaf interchange. The parclo interchange was developed by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation as a replacement for the cloverleaf on 400-Series Highways, removing the dangerous weaving patterns and allowing for more...

s at Burlington Street, Northshore Boulevard (former Highway 2), and Fairview Street/Plains Road. This section has a variable lighting system to overcome the frequent fog found in the area. It is also the site of Ontario's first freeway traffic management system which incorporates traffic cameras and changeable message signs.

A federally-owned low-level lift bridge linking Beach Boulevard in the Hamilton neighbourhood of Hamilton Beach and Lakeshore Road in the Burlington neighbourhood of Burlington Beach continues to operate. This is mainly used by local traffic, although ramps from the QEW have been configured to allow easy access to the bridge and re-entry to the highway, should the skyway bridge close due to high winds and adverse weather conditions, exacerbated by its towering height.

The original name of the first bridge was the Burlington Bay Skyway. After it was twinned, the proposed names of James N. Allan Skyway (in honour of the Ontario Minister of Highways
Ministry of Transportation (Ontario)
The Ministry of Transportation of Ontario is the provincial ministry of the government of Ontario which is responsible for transport infrastructure and related law in Ontario. The ministry traces its roots back over a century to the 1890s, when the province began training Provincial Road Building...

 James Noble Allan, who championed the 1958 bridge) and James N. Allan Burlington Bay Skyway were rejected. The official name since 1988 has been Burlington Bay James N. Allan Skyway.

The first bridge is 36 m (118 ft) high http://cms.burlington.ca/Page535.aspx and 2560m (8397 ft, 8 in) long from abutment to abutment. The second bridge is 400 m (1300 ft) shorter. The skyway is 30 m (97 ft) wide.


In fall 2008, most of the older Aluminum Tapered Leg (ATL) overhead sign gantries (commonly referred by the MTO as a "Type 1" structure) which had been installed back in the late 1980s were replaced with the newer triangular truss gantries.

External links

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