Confederation Bridge
Canada's longest bridge and world's longest over ice-covered water.
Last updated
via Wikipedia: Confederation Bridge · see source
Where it is
Coordinates: 46°12′54″N 63°44′46″W (46.2150, -63.7460) · Open in OpenStreetMap
Coordinates and connected clubs: the infobox of Wikipedia: Confederation Bridge (CC BY-SA 4.0). Map: drawn by Codexery from OpenStreetMap tiles.
Spanning the Abegweit Passage of the Northumberland Strait, the Confederation Bridge is a box girder structure that carries the Trans-Canada Highway, linking Prince Edward Island to New Brunswick.[1]
Geography and history
The bridge links the province of Prince Edward Island with the mainland province of New Brunswick.[1] The bridge's construction, which cost C$1.3 billion, began on November 1, 1993, and was completed in May 1997.[2] At midnight on November 19–20, 1996, the bridge's structure was finished when the final concrete girder was put into place.[3] Traffic was first permitted on the bridge on May 31, 1997.[4]
On Friday, May 30, BridgeFest '97 commenced with a morning run, followed by a walk that lasted the remainder of the day.[5] Tourist visits to Prince Edward Island rose from 740,000 in 1996 to 1,200,000 in 1997, before subsequently settling to roughly 900,000 per year.[6]
What the cited sources add
The curved 12.9-kilometre bridge is the longest in the world crossing ice-covered water, according to a 2009 parliamentary testimony.[7] The consequence of the fixed link yes vote in 1988 was that the Confederation Bridge was constructed, and it joined the rest of Canada to Prince Edward Island at a total construction cost of one billion dollars.[7] Any attempt to close Abegweit Passage would be next to impossible due to the extremely complex tidal regime in the Northumberland Strait consisting of diurnal and semi-diurnal cycles.[8] The Canadian government overruled the committee, and on September 27, 1996, Minister Diane Marleau announced the name would be "Confederation Bridge"[9]
Specialists in tides from the Canadian Hydrographic Service calculated that tidal flows through an opening in a causeway would surpass 18 knots, a force strong enough to stop most commercial vessels and wash away boulders as large as houses.[8]
References
- Wikipedia, "Confederation Bridge" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The Confederation Bridge: Celebrating 20 years of connecting Canadians", Public Services and Procurement Canada; Croken, "Mr. Lowell Croken (Chief Electoral Officer and Chief of Protocol, Legislative Assembly, Elections P.E.I.) at the Procedure and House Affairs Committee", openparliament.ca, December 1, 2009 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Confederation Bridge" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Signing Day, October 7, 1993", Confederation Bridge, 2018, p. 2; "Take the High Road: Construction", Strait Crossing Bridge Limited, 2013 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Confederation Bridge" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Foot, Richard. "They 'Walked' on Water...and into History", Saint John Times Globe, November 21, 1996, page A3. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Confederation Bridge" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: CBC Digital Archives, "The Confederation Bridge: P.E.I. Connects", CBC News (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Confederation Bridge" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Web Archive: News Releases" (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Confederation Bridge" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Government of Canada, "Bridge to Prince Edward Island", 1997 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Croken, "Mr. Lowell Croken (Chief Electoral Officer and Chief of Protocol, Legislative Assembly, Elections P.E.I.) at the Procedure and House Affairs Committee", openparliament.ca, December 1, 2009. facts only, no text reused. openparliament.ca
- Wikipedia, "Confederation Bridge" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Dalton, F. K., "Tampering With the Tides", Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, 1961, p. 176–188 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Confederation Bridge" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Confederation Bridge", October 1, 1996; Sewell, "Representing the Confederation Bridge", Saint Mary's University, 2014 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Confederation Bridge (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Confederation Bridge (CC BY-SA 4.0).
- Currency conversion: European Central Bank euro reference rates, rates of 2 October 2026.
- Word definitions: the Codexery glossary, each quoted from its Wikipedia article.
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