Edmonton Valley Light Rail Tawatina Bridge

This new 16.7 mile (27 km) rail route in Alberta, Canada will stretch from Mill Woods to downtown Edmonton to Lewis Farms and carry an estimated 100,000 daily commuters. The project is being built in two stages. Stage one of the project is for the Valley Line Southeast which consists of eight miles (13 km) of light rail that will connect Mill Woods to 102 Street in downtown Edmonton. This portion will include 11 stops and one two-story station, and the Tawatina Bridge.

American Bridge’s scope of work falls under stage one which includes the demolition of the existing Cloverdale pedestrian bridge and construction of the Tawatina Bridge. The bridge consists of an 853 foot (260-meter), three-span extradosed cable stayed bridge and pedestrian walkway over the North Saskatchewan River. The stay cables on this bridge will function as external post-tensioning for the superstructure, which impart a large longitudinal force on the superstructure with only a small uplift component to support the deck vertically. There are seven stay cables running through each leg of the 30-meter pylons. The cables utilize a saddle system provided by Vorpsann Systems Limited and each cable has 40 strands. Over 13,670 tons (12,400 tonnes) of concrete will be used for the construction of the bridge.

Project Details

  • Owner: City of Edmonton
  • Client: Trans Ed Partners
  • Location: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
  • Project Value: $52.3M
  • Completion Date: 2021 (est.)
  • Structure Type: Bridge