Howrah Bridge রবীন্দ্র সেতু | |
|---|---|
 Night view of the Howrah Bridge | |
| Coordinates | 22°35′06″N 88°20′49″E / 22.5851°N 88.3469°E |
| Carries | Strand Road, Kolkata,[1][2] Roadway with pedestrians and bicycles |
| Crosses | Hooghly River[3] |
| Locale | Howrah, Kolkata metropolitan region,  India |
| Official name | Rabindra Setu |
| Named for | Rabindranath Tagore |
| Maintained by | Kolkata Port Trust[4] |
| Characteristics | |
| Design | Suspension type balanced cantilever[5] and truss arch[6] |
| Material | Steel |
| Total length | 705 m (2,313.0 ft)[7][8] |
| Width | 21.6 m (70.9 ft) with two footpaths of 4.6 m (15.1 ft) on either side[5] |
| Height | 82 m (269.0 ft)[6] |
| Longest span | 457.2 m (1,500.0 ft)[5][6] |
| Clearance above | 5.8 m (19.0 ft)[5] |
| Clearance below | 8.8 m (28.9 ft)[5] |
| No. of lanes | 6 |
| History | |
| Designer | M/s. Rendel, Palmer and Tritton[9] |
| Constructed by | The Braithwaite Burn & Jessop Construction Company Limited |
| Construction start | 1936[9] |
| Construction end | 1942[9] |
| Opened | 3 February 1943[8] |
| Statistics | |
| Daily traffic | Approx. 100,000 vehicles with more than 150,000 pedestrians[10] |
| Toll | No |
| Location | |
 | |
The Howrah Bridge is a balanced steel bridge over the Hooghly River in West Bengal, India. Commissioned in 1943,[9][11] the bridge was originally named the New Howrah Bridge, because it replaced a pontoon bridge at the same location linking the twin cities of Howrah and Kolkata, which are located at the opposite banks of each other. On 14 June 1965, it was renamed Rabindra Setu after the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, who was the first Indian and Asian Nobel laureate.[11] It is still popularly known as the Howrah Bridge.
The bridge is one of four on the Hooghly River and is a famous symbol of Kolkata and West Bengal. The other bridges are the Vidyasagar Setu (popularly called the Second Hooghly Bridge), the Vivekananda Setu and the relatively new Nivedita Setu. It carries a daily traffic of approximately 100,000 vehicles[12] and possibly more than 150,000 pedestrians,[10] easily making it the busiest cantilever bridge in the world.[13] The third-longest cantilever bridge at the time of its construction,[14] the Howrah Bridge is currently the sixth-longest bridge of its type in the world.[15]
- ^ "Howrah Bridge Review". Retrieved 21 November 2011.
- ^ "Howrah Bridge Map". Retrieved 26 November 2011.
- ^ Helen Schreider; Frank Schreider (October 1960). "From The Hair Of Siva". National Geographic. 118 (4): 445–503.
- ^ "Howrah Bridge Maintenance". Archived from the original on 18 November 2011. Retrieved 21 November 2011.
- ^ a b c d e "Bridge Details". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 21 November 2011.
- ^ a b c "Howrah Bridge". Retrieved 21 November 2011.
- ^ "Howrah Bridge". Retrieved 21 November 2011.
- ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
motherwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b c d "History of the Howrah Bridge". Archived from the original on 13 April 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2011.
- ^ a b "Bird droppings gnaw at Howrah bridge frame". The Times of India. 29 May 2003. Archived from the original on 16 June 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2011.
- ^ a b "Howrah Bridge – The Bridge without Nuts & Bolts!". Archived from the original on 7 January 2019. Retrieved 21 November 2011.
- ^ "Flow of Traffic on an average week day (8AM to 8 PM)". Archived from the original on 18 August 2011. Retrieved 21 November 2011.
- ^ "Hosanna to Howrah Bridge!". Archived from the original on 17 November 2011. Retrieved 21 November 2011.
- ^ Victor D. Johnson (2007). Essentials Of Bridge Engineering. Oxford & Ibh Publishing Co. Pvt Ltd. p. 259.
- ^ Durkee, Jackson (24 May 1999), National Steel Bridge Alliance: World's Longest Bridge Spans (PDF), American Institute of Steel Construction, Inc, archived from the original (PDF) on 1 June 2002, retrieved 2 January 2009