Media City Footbridge - Salford, UK
Posted by: 
dtrebilc
N 53° 28.250 W 002° 18.002
30U E 546461 N 5924877
This swing pedestrian suspension bridge on the Manchester Ship Canal allows boats access to Salford Quays. Its interesting design means that it is both a suspension bridge and a moveable bridge.
Waymark Code: WMGM3E
Location: North West England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 03/18/2013
Views: 6
The Manchester Ship Canal opened in 1894 and connected Manchester to the coast at the Mersey estuary near Liverpool. This enabled Manchester to become Britain’s 3rd busiest port even though it is 64 km inland.
The canal can accommodate sea going vessels with a maximum length of 183 metres but by modern standards this limits the size of ship that can access the port. The main port at Salford Quays closed in 1982 for commercial handling and ships now dock on canal side wharves.
However some boats do still use Salford Quays including pleasure cruises between Manchester and Liverpool, hence the need for any bridges on the canal to not restrict the ships passage.
After Salford Quays closed the area around about became derelict but has since become the largest urban regeneration project in the UK. The site has been developed with a mixture of housing, offices, theatres, museums and retail outlets. It is also served by the Metrolink tram system.
The latest phase of the development has been the building of Media City that is the site of a number of TV and radio companies including a number of BBC departments that have moved from London.
These details were extracted from this Wikpedia web page
visit link where more details can be found.
The architects of the bridge were Wilkinson Eyre and their web page has this description about the bridge.
visit link "Wilkinson Eyre Architects was commissioned to develop designs for a unique opening footbridge between the proposed Media City development for the BBC at Salford Quays and the Imperial War Museum of the North. The bridge has a dramatic curved form which responds to the radial masterplan of the site and which will form an integral part of an orbital pedestrian route around the Canal basin. The steel bridge deck is supported along one edge by a series of stay cable which transfer loads to a distinctive fanned mast. Behind the mast, the deck flares to form an amenable public space above the water which rotates with the bridge as a counterbalance to the main, 100m moveable span across the Manchester Ship Canal."