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Page 6 WEST VANCOUVER HISTORICAL SOCIETY June 1998 FEATURE PRESENTATION REPORT The Lions Gate Bridge By: Anne Vernon Born in New Westminster and educated in Washington and Vancouver, our speaker, Dr. Jim Roddick, graduated from UBC in Geological Engineering, and took post graduate studies at Cal. Tech., where one of his professors was Charles Richter (of Richter Scale fame). After obtaining his Ph.D., Jim joined the Canadian Geotechnical Survey team as a research scientist. He and his wife moved to West Vancouver in 1964. Dr. Roddick, a retired Geological Survey of Canada geologist, specialized in Circum Pacific Granites, presented a very interesting and informative lecture to Society members at the last general meeting. He opened his talk by providing a brief commentary on the geology of our area. He explained, that our local landscape looks as it does largely because we are located in an active earthquake zone. He noted that on January 26, 1700, an enormous tsunami was reported in Japan. The earthquake causing it had occurred off the West Coast and recently remains of large cedar trees were found near the North Oregon coast. Scientist were able to date them to 1699, as there were no rings for the year 1700. The rocks imderlying Stanley Park and much of Vancouver belong to the Lower Nanaimo Group (or Burrard Formation, whereas the North Shore is underlain mainly by granitic rocks with glacial deposits on them. The continental ice sheet covered the northern part of the continent for about 10,000 years, (locally it extends several miles south of Olympia Washington.) The narrow bottle neck that we now know as the First Narrows was formed because of the resistant volcanic feeder dyke which intruded the 80 million year old Biurard Formation about 34 million years ago. Having set the geological background for the audience. Dr. Roddick moved on to the topic at hand, the Lions Gate Bridge. Together with Jim’s slides and information, we were in for a fascinating talk. In 1931 West Vancouver had a tax sale and Guinness Family interests bought 4,000 acres of land. Finding it difficult to sell lots because transportation between the North Shore and \hncouver was time consuming, a bridge crossing was suggested at the First Narrows. Bridge proposals had been made previously but they were not approved, as it meant splitting Stanley Park in two. It was not until the depression of the 1930’s that approval was granted and in April of 1937, one month before San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge opened, construction work began. Many of the workers from that bridge project eventually came to Vancouver to work on our bridge. (In fact, the foreman for the Lions Gate Bridge had actually placed the first rivet on the Golden Gate Bridge. ()uite an achievement!) The substructure worit took six months, two caissons were built on the Stanley Park side and one on the North Shore, then the piers and towers took shape. The south caisson is on the strong bedrock, but the north side is built on boulder clay and Capilano gravel. According to Dr. Roddick, this is not too good in an earthquake! On May 2nd, 1938 at 4:30 am, during a veiy high tide, the Narrows was closed to all shipping. A huge barge, towed by three tugs, pulled four cables across so that they could be slung fi-om the towers to support a catwalk for the work force. This had to be repeated the next day. These were the only times the Narrows was closed to shipping during construction. The design of Lions Gate was similar to that of the Golden Gate, just not so large. The cables were constructed of sixty-one interior cables and are still in excellent shape today - sixty years later. Workmanship was really something in those days! On November 12th, 1938 Lions Gate Bridge was open for business - 25 cents for car and driver, 5 cents for each passenger and for bicycles and foot passengers - these were in place until 1963. The first non-worker across the bridge was a Mrs. Mary Sutton, who was described in the local press as "a little old lady in black." Unlike the Golden Gate which still has tolls today and is a "cash cow" for the State, our bridge has not had tolls for many years In addition to learning about the geological background and construction of the bridge. Dr. Roddick shared some interesting facts with the audience. For example, did you know that no one fell off the bridge although safety precautions were minimal! There was one fatality caused by a collapsing retaining wall in Stanley Park. This was quite different from the Golden Gate Bridge project, where, despite excellent safety precautions and a net, eleven workmen died in falls during construction. Today, sixty years after first opening for business, and despite increasing loads, the dear old Lions Gate Bridge is still fairly fit! The towers and cables will last for another 100 years, but the roadway is in bad shape. Rivets have had to be replaced by hard steel bolts and the Capilano River definitely does its best to undermine the South pier by depositing debris which forces strong currents against it. The weakest point of the bridge is on the North Shore approach, just where the bridge begins and the approach ends. Apparently, this is NOT the place to be in an earthquake! Strangely enough the central portion of the bridge is a safer place to be -quite a surprise for most of us I think. Jim Roddick, together with most of us, loves the old bridge and thinks it should be preserved for pedestrians and cyclists and taken out of the main transportation system. While he remarked that a tunnel would be safe, he would prefer to see another bridge crossing. He ended his presentation by telling us that he thought most of those people who had worked on the Ixidge had passed away, but he was proved wrong when a member of the audience got up and told us that he had worked on the bridge. Jim McCarthy remarked that a long time Society member and bridge worker, George Smith, had died just five years ago. Also present at the meeting was the widow of a project manger on the bridge. Finally, another member of the audience, told us that he had worked on the toll booth. No doubt we shall have more stories from them all to add to our archival material and we may even be lucky enough to publish some of their reminiscences in a future issue of History-Onics. See the illustrations on Page 3, 4 & 5