History
Construction on the Gateway Bridge commenced on 5 June 1980. The construction of the bridge started before the design was completed, to fast track its construction. It was officially commissioned on 11 January 1986. On this day 200,000 people crossed the bridge by foot as part of the opening activities. About five months after the bridge was opened Prince Phillip officially opened the bridge.
In 1986 the bridge carried an average of 12,500 vehicles per day. In 2001 the bridge was crossed by 27 million vehicles. In early 2010 the single bridge was carrying an average of 100,000 vehicles per day.
The annual Bridge to Brisbane fun run has begun from the southern entrance to the bridge for the past decade.
Read more about this topic: Sir Leo Hielscher Bridges
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The History of the world is not the theatre of happiness. Periods of happiness are blank pages in it, for they are periods of harmony—periods when the antithesis is in abeyance.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“It’s a very delicate surgical operation—to cut out the heart without killing the patient. The history of our country, however, is a very tough old patient, and we’ll do the best we can.”
—Dudley Nichols, U.S. screenwriter. Jean Renoir. Sorel (Philip Merivale)