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The Burlington Canal Lift Bridge is located on the
western shore of Lake Ontario on a site rich in history.
The bridge spans the Burlington Canal that was opened
in 1826. Once a narrow cut, the canal now provides Burlington
Bay (Hamilton Harbour) with navigable access to the
Atlantic Ocean. The canal connected the Hamilton Harbour
industrial region to international trade and commerce.
It was among a series of waterway projects begun, 200
years ago, to provide navigation from Lake Erie to the
Atlantic Ocean. Today the Burlington Canal remains a
busy waterway and is vital to the area commerce.
There were five different moveable bridges located
on this site since 1830. The present bridge was opened
in 1962 and carried two lanes of vehicular traffic across
the canal. This structure originally had tracks for
the Hamilton — Northwestern railway which were
removed in 1982 when the road way was widened to four
lanes.
The bridge structure is a tower driven, vertical lift
and moveable bridge. The lift span is 380 feet
long, weighs 2200 tons and has a vertical lift
of 110 feet. A system originating in the towers
contains machinery, sheaves and wire ropes is used to
move the lift span. There is one 150 horsepower
drive motor in each tower to supply power to the machinery
and one 150 horsepower motor in each tower to synchronize
the drive motors.
The navigation season usually runs from late March
to late December. During the winter shut down, the bridge
staff overhaul the tower drive gear.
Since its installation, the bridge has been operated
in excess of 166,380 times, allowing the passage of
over 250,000 vessels. On a yearly basis, the bridge
will operate approximately 4000 times allowing approximately
6500 vessels to pass through the canal; this includes
more than 1000 cargo-carrying vessels.
The bridge lifts on-demand for all large vessels and
on the hour and half hour for pleasurecraft. In order
to ensure safety, the bridge must be raised early since
in the event of a failure, we need to provide the vessel
time to turn since a fully loaded vessel can take in
excess of a mile to stop.
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