Kalpana Kalpana (Editor)

Napier Bridge

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Crosses
  
Cooum river

Opened
  
1869

Location
  
Chennai

Material
  
Concrete

Address
  
Cooum River

Longest span
  
138 m

Body of water
  
Cooum River

Carry
  
Pedestrian

Napier Bridge

Carries
  
6 lanes of traffic and pedestrians

Locale
  
Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

Construction begin
  
1869; 148 years ago (1869) 1999; 18 years ago (1999) (appended)

Similar
  
Broken bridge - Chennai, Fort St George - India, Lighthouse - Chennai, Statue of Thomas Munro, MGR Memorial

Napier bridge


Napier Bridge is a bridge in Chennai (Madras), India, built over the Coovum River connecting Fort St. George with the Marina beach.

Contents

Napier bridge chennai india


History

One of the city's oldest bridges, it was built in 1869 by Francis Napier who was the Governor of Madras from 1866 to 1872.

Structure

Alongside the iron bridge built in 1869, a new bridge was built in 1999 with a 10.5 m (34 ft)-wide carriageway on the western side. The eastern side carriageway is 9.75 m (32.0 ft) in width. The bridge is 138 m (453 ft) long with 6 spans (bowstrings) across the river near its mouth. It has 2 m (6 ft 7 in) wide footpaths.

Beautification

As part of the Marina Beach beautification project, special lights have been fixed beneath the bridge providing a visual effect as if the bridge is floating on the river water. A combination of lighting effects has been created on the arches and surface using 464 bulbs and fixtures. The lights and fixtures covered the outer arch, inner arch, edge, bottom, road and pedestrian pathways of the bridge. The 1.62 crore (equivalent to 2.5 crore or US$380,000 in 2016) special lighting arrangement was inaugurated by the then Deputy Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M. K. Stalin, on 27 July 2010.

The lighting designers for the bridge's new look was awarded to LDP Lighting of Sydney, Australia, who have also designed the lighting for the Erasmus Bridge Rotterdam, Sydney Harbour Bridge, and the Sydney Opera House.

References

Napier Bridge Wikipedia