Mont-Cliffes Bridge
Mont-Cliffes Bridge | |
|---|---|
.jpg) September 2015 view from an aeroplane | |
| Carries | Four road lanes Double-track train lines |
| Crosses | Oftbon Channel |
| Locale | Oftbon and Mont-Cliffes, Elbresia |
| Characteristics | |
| Design | Cable-stayed bridge |
| Total length | 7,845 metres (25,738 ft) |
| Width | 23.5 metres (77.1 ft) |
| Height | 204 metres (669 ft) |
| Longest span | 490 metres (1,608 ft) |
| Clearance below | 57 metres (187 ft) |
| History | |
| Construction start | 1995 |
| Construction end | 1999 |
| Opened | 1 July 2000 |
| Statistics | |
| Daily traffic | c. 3,189,000 road vehicles (2022) |
Mont-Cliffes Bridge is a combined railway and motorway bridge across the Oftbon Channel between Mont-Cliffes and Oftbon on Oertor Island. It is the longest combined road and rail bridge in Nortua, running nearly 28 kilometres (17.4 miles) from the Oertor's northwest coast at Oftbon to the island of Thompson in the edge of the Channel. The bridge is one of two fixed-links between Oertor and mainland Nortua, the other being the Chelsea-Immes tunnel. Witnessing more than 15 million crossings a year, it is also one of the busiest bridges in the world. Prior to the bridge's opening in 2000, crossings of the Channel were done by boat or plane. Congestion on the bridge became a major issue on multiple occasions as Oertor's population and economy boomed, and in 2017 the Chelsea-Immes tunnel opened to ease much of the blockage.
Ideas for a fixed link across the Channel were advanced as early as the first decade of the 20th century. In 1910, proposals were put to the Elbresian Parliament for a railway tunnel across the strait, which would have comprised two tunnelled sections linked by a surface road across the island of Thompson. The concept of a bridge over the Channel was first formally proposed in 1936 by a consortium of engineering firms who proposed a national motorway network for Elbresia. The idea was dropped during the World War, but picked up again thereafter and studied in significant detail in various government commissions through the 1950s and 1960s. However, disagreement existed regarding the placement and exact form of the link, with some arguing for a link at the narrowest point of the sound, further north of Oftbon, and some arguing for a more direct link from Oftbon to Hoffland. The government eventually signed an agreement to build a fixed link in 1973, and planning for the bridge went into effect.