Crosses Georges River No. of spans 7 Opened 1965 Width 28 m Body of water Georges River | Material Concrete girder Constructed by John Holland Group Total length 506 m Location Southern Sydney | |
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Carries Motor vehicles, pedestrians and bicycles Locale Southern Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Address Taren Point Rd, Taren Point NSW 2229, Australia Owner Roads and Maritime Services Similar Tom Uglys Bridge, Roseville Bridge, Georges River, Gladesville Bridge, Alfords Point Bridge | ||
The Captain Cook Bridge is a six-lane precast prestressed concrete girder bridge for motor vehicles, pedestrians and bicycles, that crosses the Georges River in southern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The bridge crosses near the river mouth as it empties into Botany Bay; and links the St George and Sutherland areas of Sydney.
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Location and features
The Captain Cook Bridge consists of seven spans totalling 475 metres (1,558 ft) in length, with a 506-metre (1,660 ft) long deck that is 27.5 metres (90 ft) wide with initially eight traffic lanes and two footways. The roadway now carries three lanes of traffic in either direction, plus shared bicycle and pedestrian paths, segregated from the roadway on both the eastern and western sides of the bridge. Its foundations go up to 67 metres (220 ft) below water level to its sandstone base. The bridge was opened on 29 May 1965 and links Rocky Point Road at Sans Souci in the St George area to Taren Point Road at Taren Point in the Sutherland Shire. Loop walkways run under the bridge at both sides and provide access along the foreshore.
The bridge is the easternmost of the three major crossings over the Georges River. The other two are Tom Uglys Bridge, which opened in 1929 and Alfords Point Bridge, which opened in 1973.
The Captain Cook Bridge is the only section of the planned F6 Freeway that has been built inside the Sydney metropolitan area; with the other sections being between Waterfall and Bulli Tops and further south between Gwynneville to Yallah. The speed limit across the bridge and the associated road sections is 80 kilometres per hour (50 mph).
The bridge was designed to have the capacity to carry 30,000 vehicles on a weekday, but in 2015 the bridge was estimated to be carrying 30,600 vehicles per weekday.
History
A ferry service ran between Sans Souci and Taren Point from 1911. From April 1916 a vehicular punt ran between the two points, and continued to do so even after the opening of the Tom Uglys Bridge in 1929.
The Captain Cook Bridge is named in honour of Captain James Cook, a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy, who landed at nearby Kurnell on 29 April 1770, during his first voyage of discovery aboard the Endeavour.
A big part of commissioning the Captain Cook Bridge was the fact that the nearby Tom Ugly's Bridge was carrying more traffic than any three lanes of the Sydney Harbour Bridge before 1962, and the Taren Point punt was at full capacity carrying 1000 cars daily.