List of bridges to the Island of Montreal

Montreal is on a boomerang-shaped island surrounded by three major rivers. To the northwest, lies another eye-shaped island, which is the site of Laval. The northern ring contains those mainland areas past Laval. To the east, south, and southwest on the mainland, is the southern ring.
Bridges are required to connect Montreal to the mainland (gray).

Like most major cities, Montreal needs easy highway access from its suburbs and surrounding areas. However, because Montreal was built on an island surrounded by three rivers, it can be entered by land only on a bridge or through a tunnel. Although the city was founded in 1642,[1] it was not until 1847 that the first fixed link to the outside was established when a wooden bridge was built across Rivière des Prairies to Île Jésus, on the site of what is now Ahuntsic Bridge. Another bridge was built immediately afterward, a few kilometers west, which became Lachapelle Bridge, and another in 1849, Pont des Saints-Anges, to the east.[2] The latter bridge collapsed in the 1880s and was never rebuilt.[2]

With the advent of the railroad, Montreal got a fixed link to the mainland; in 1854 railroad bridges were built in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, across both channels of the Ottawa River, linking Montreal Island to Ontario and the Vaudreuil-Soulanges peninsula through Perrot Island.[3] In 1860, Montreal got its first link to the South Shore with the construction of Victoria Bridge, which was, at the time of its opening, the longest bridge in the world.[4] Indirect links to the North Shore also had to wait for railroad construction, but this took longer; the Canadian Pacific Railway opened its link to Saint-Jérôme in 1876, through Île Jésus.[2]

  1. ^ The Encyclopedia Americana: a library of universal knowledge, Volume 19. University of Wisconsin – Madison. 1919. p. 415.
  2. ^ a b c Dion, Richard; André Bernier; Serge Philibert; Georges Leahy; Sylvie Lalonde (1981). Analyse historique et architecturale sur le patrimoine lavallois, volume 1 (in French). Pluram Inc. pp. 47–51.
  3. ^ Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue 1703–2003. Paroisse Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue. 2003. pp. 125, 130. ISBN 2-9808057-0-X.
  4. ^ Sweetser, Moses Foster (1877). New England; a handbook for travellers. J.R. Osgood and co. p. 391.