Columbia River Skywalk - Trail, BC - Pedestrian Suspension Bridges on Waymarking.com

With all the pomp and ceremony due such an auspicious event, the mayor of Trail bit through the ribbon to officially open the Columbia River Skywalk shortly after 2:00 PM on the afternoon of December 15th, 2016. You see, it was so cold that day that his scissors snapped, leaving him to improvise in order that the ceremony continue, so he chewed through the ribbon, thereafter declaring the bridge OPEN. Columbia River Skywalk was the name chosen for the bridge in March of 2016.

Five years in the planning and building, the $15 million bridge was sufficiently important to the town engineer that, after five years of pouring over bridge details he postponed his retirement until after the bridge's completion. 300 metres in length, it is the third bridge to be built in the city. The first, a steel truss bridge, was built in 1911, the first bridge to span the Columbia River in the Trail area, replacing the previous means of crossing, a ferry. It is just a hundred metres downstream. The second, a four lane steel arch bridge replaced the old, single lane 1911 bridge in 1961. The second bridge is located upstream, about 1/2 mile to the northwest.

Supported by two tall steel towers standing on concrete piers and a pair of steel cables, the bridge was designed to also carry a sewer interceptor line (pipe) which was carried by the old vehicle bridge 100 metres to the east. Rather than restore the 1911 bridge, which was actually a popular idea in the city, city council chose to build this new bridge with the capacity to carry the pipeline. This almost certainly means that the old bridge will soon be torn down, to the dismay of much of the citizenry.