Creating a Vancouver Icon: the Lions Gate Bridge

Creating a Vancouver Icon: the Lions Gate Bridge. . , Originally built to access the North Shore, the Lions Gate Bridge is now one of the city's busiest thoroughfares with over 60,000 vehicles driving across each day., Tension over the Suspension , In 1927, Vancouverites voted against building a bridge across the First Narrows. They felt it would ruin Stanley Park or cause problems for ships in the busy seaport. But a few years later, public attitudes changed when a major shipping accident knocked out the Second Narrows Bridge and severed bridge access to the North Shore. A second bridge was a clear solution., Financed by Private Capital , Construction of the Lions Gate Bridge provided much needed work during the Great Depression and opened up real estate prospects. The Guinness family (of Irish beer fame) and other British investors largely formed the First Narrows Bridge Company to fund and oversee the project. They had purchased large tracts of North Shore forest and saw the bridge as an opportunity to develop their land. In 1938, after one and a half years of construction and at a cost of nearly $5.9 million, the bridge opened to traffic - charging a 25-cent toll for each car., [Sidebar] , Named After Noble Peaks , The Lions are a pair of pointed peaks on Vancouver's North Shore. The name reflects the colonial British heritage of early settlers. The Squamish First Nation refer to the peaks as Ch'ich'iyu'y Elxwi'kn, meaning “the Sisters.” In their history, two sisters were transformed by the Sky Brothers after the sisters enabled the long standing war to end between the Squamish and Haida., Captions , (Left) The bridge won accolades for its elegant design. Bridge workman, Joe Lepage, called it “light and graceful, like a spider's web in the sun.” , (Right) The Guinness family sold the bridge to the province in 1955, and the tolls were eventually dropped.