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new bridge coming at Bordeaux:
Pont Bacalan-Bastide
Pont Chaban-Delmas

new vertical lift bridge

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the bridges of Bordeaux
Gustave Eiffel’s first work: the Eiffel passerelle, Bordeaux
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a dream unfulfilled - the transporter bridge [pont transbordeur], Bordeaux photos

transbordeur/transporter bridges in France and the world 1:
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Pont Chaban-Delmas
vertical lift bridges
structural statistics
the bridges of Bordeaux today
Passerelle Eiffel
three generations of trams at Bordeaux
Bordeaux transporter bridge

related pages

The Pont Chaban-Delmas, spanning the River Gironde between the Baclan and Bastide quarters of Bordeaux, is 433 metres long and 77 metres high, and so is one of the largest vertical lift bridges in Europe. Its pulley system means that the road bed can be fully lifted in 11 minutes.

Started in January 2010 and completed on the 31st December 2012, the Pont Chaban-Delmas in service from 17th March 2013. The day before, inaugural celebrations included a fun run, the Run of the Bridges, between this new bridge and the Pont de Pierre by thousands of runners. In the evening, there was a spectacular firework show using the bridge.


14:24 mins

This vertical lift bridge connects the Bacalan (left bank) and la Bastide quarters (right bank) of Bordeaux. The bridge has been nicknamed ‘le Pont Ba-Ba’. At the end of October 2012, the bridge officially became the Pont Jacques Chaban-Delmas (or Pont Chaban-Delmas), named after a former mayor of Bordeaux.

Some od the 38,000 visitors on the new bridge

On 1st January 2013, though only 20,000 souvenir bracelets had been made, 38,000 locals and ‘foreigners’ from neighbouring departments promenaded on the new bridge during six hours.


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Artist's impression of the Pont Bacalan-Bastide - the Bacalan-Bastide Bridge - to be built at Bordeaux

Artist's impressions of the Pont Chaban-Delmas - the Chaban-Delmas Bridge - built at Bordeaux. Images: Egis-JMI

Artist's impression of the Pont Bacalan-Bastide with centre section raised

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a fifth bridge coming to Bordeaux: pont Chaban-Delmas, a new vertical lift bridge

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There is a commemorative stamp of this bridge, issued by La Poste, the French Post Office:

French postage stamp of Pont Chaban-Delmas

 

vertical lift bridges

Vertical lift bridges are an uncommon solution to spanning a river used by large, or tall ships. As well as the Pont Chaban-Delmas, there is a vertical lift bridge at Rouen, and at Sacremento, California. There used to be one for a while at Rochefort.

Vertical lift bridges have a lifting centre section, so that large and tall ships may pass near to the city’s centre. It takes 12 minutes for the bridge to be either raised or lowered.


video from Sud-Ouest

Structural statistics of the Pont Chaban-Delmas

  • Roadway length 433 m
  • Roadbed width: 43 m
    Two lanes for public transport (trams),
    four car lanes
    two pedestrian and cycle tracks

Cross-section through the new bridge at Bordeaux. Image: pourlepontbaba.com
Cross-section through the new bridge at Bordeaux. Image: pourlepontbaba.com

  • Three steel road bed sections (fixed: 2 x 150m, lifting: 1 x 120m) will be made by Cimolai in Italy, close to Venice, and floated through the Mediterranean and the Atlantic to reach the Garonne river.
  • Length of mobile, lifting section: 117 m
  • Navigable channel width: 106 m
  • Pylon height: 77 m
  • Height of raised section above water when lifted: 53 m
  • Weight of liftable section: 2,600 tonnes
  • Time to raise roadway: 11 minutes
  • Predicted number of lifts in a year: 60
  • Protective bases, that enclose the lifting mechanisms: 44m by 18m, 16.5m high, about 5,000 tonnes weight
  • First stone laid: 9 December 2009, near avenue Lucien Faure
  • Bases and protective island for pylons: to be towed into position, then sunk: June 2010 for the left bank and January 2011 for the right bank
  • Pylons to be erected, access roads, lifting mechanism: 2011 to summer 2012
  • Installation of mobile section: summer 2012
  • Works to be completed: December 31st 2012
  • Workforce: between 800 and 900. A list of all those involved is being drawn up and will slid in amongst one of the piles.
  • Designers: Egis-JMI, Lavigne & Cheron Architects, and Hardesty & Hanover
    Thomas Lavigne is the son of Charles Lavigne who designed both the Pont de Normandie and the Pont Ile de Re.
  • Consultant engineer: Michel Virlogeux
  • Main constructor: Vinci Construction. On 17/3/2013, responsibility for running the bridge will be passed to Eiffage.
  • Overall cost: 145,8 million euro - City of Bordeaux: 94.27M €, State: 18.29M €, region: 15.24M €, département: 18M €
  • Annual maintenance budget: 0.5M €


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the bridges of Bordeaux today

Bordeaux straddles the river Garonne, as it approaches the Atlantic Ocean.

Google map locating past, present and future bridges at Bordeaux
Map locating past, present and future bridges at Bordeaux
hover with your mouse, clickable links change to a hand icon
colour code for labels - past: blue; current: green; future: yellow

Currently, going downstream, the functioning bridges at Bordeaux are:

  • the Pont François Mitterrand, opened in 1993
    Pont Francois Mitterand, Bordeaux. Image:  Jacques Mossot/structurae.de

    The Pont d’Aquitaine and the Pont François Mitterrand are part of the rocade [ring road] around Bordeaux.

    Note that just upstream of the Pont Garonne is the Eiffel Passerelle, now a historic monument.

  • Pont Garonne, an railway bridge, opened in 2008, replacing the Passerelle Eiffel [previous railway bridge]
TGV trains passing on Pont Garonne
TGV trains passing on Pont Garonne
Pont Garonne, Bordeaux

Note that, because the Pont Garonne has been built so close to the Passerelle Eiffel, in the photo above the upper, cross-hatched, trellis part of the Passerelle Eiffel appears to be an upper part of the Pont Garonne.

Passerelle Eiffel and the Pont Garonne
the Passerelle Eiffel (on the left) and the Pont Garonne

  • the Pont Saint Jean, opened in 1965, just south of the Pont de Pierre
    Pont Saint Jean, Bordeaux


  • the Pont de Pierre [Stone Bridge], built between 1819 and 1822
    the is bridge has 17 arches, the number of letters in the name Napoleon Bonaparte, who ordered its construction
    Pont de Pierre, Bordeaux


    Note that between the Pont de Pierre and the Pont d’Aquitaine can be found the remains of the Bordeaux Transbordeur bridge , in due course, [2012] the Pont Bacalan-Bastide

  • the Pont d’Aquitaine, completed in 1967
    Pont d'Aquitaine, Bordeaux

    and part of the Bordeaux rocade [ring road] .

 

 

 


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  • the Eiffel passerelle
    There is also the iron railway bridge, the Passerelle Eiffel, completed by Gustave Eiffel in 1858 [his first construction project, when he was 26 years old]. It has been‘retired’ by cutting of the access at each end. This bridge, in former days, was known as the metal bridge [le pont metallique] and as the iron bridge [le pont de fer].

Passerelle Eiffel between the two world  wars
By the 20th century, an external footbridge and access stairs had been added to the Passerelle Eiffel

The Eiffel Passerelle took trains to the Gare du Midi, now called the Gare St-Jean.


Trams and horse-drawn taxis waiting for passengers at the Gare du Midi

three generations of trams at bordeaux

horse-drawn trams in Bordeaux

The first tramway system in Bordeaux began in 1880 with horse-drawn trams.

The horses were replaced, in due course, by a rudimentary form of ground-level electricity supply as the means of propulsion. By 1946, there were 38 tram lines, totalling 200 km, that carried 160,000 passengers a day.

Electric trams in Bordeaux

In 1947, an anti-tram mayor, Jacques Chaban-Delmas, was elected and the lines were closed one after another. The last line was closed in 1958, because of their hindrance to cars and the annoying rails set in the roads.

Despite the “all car” policy being a disaster, Bordeaux had to wait for the election of a new mayor, Alain Juppé in 1995 before the transport policy would change. The modern tram system of Bordeaux opened in 2003, with dedicated, separate tramlines. There is a ground-level power supply in central Bordeaux to avoid unsightly overhead cabling, so often to be seen in France, while in outer Bordeaux there are grassed tracks and overhead lines.

Modern tram in Bordeaux. Image: izzyguide
Image: izzyguide

Marker at abelard.org

Artist's impression of the Bordeaux transporter bridgetransporter bridge

To unite the two sides of the Garonne, the first bridge built was the Pont de Pierre - the Stone Bridge. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, it was decided to build a transporter bridge, similar to those then recently built at Nantes and Marseilles (both since demolished). Transporter bridges allow large and tall ships to pass without hindrance. [The French for transporter bridge is pont transbordeur.]

The foundation stone of this Bordeaux transporter, or suspended car, bridge was laid in 1910. But today there is almost no trace of this bridge, once intended to be the biggest in the world of its type.

abelard.org has a separate page about this historic bridge at a dream unfulfilled - the transporter bridge [pont transbordeur], Bordeaux


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