Narrows Bridge | |
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Coordinates | 31°57′48″S 115°50′49″E / 31.9633°S 115.8469°E |
Type | State Registered Place |
Designated | 23 April 1999 |
Reference no. | 4795 |
Location | |
The Narrows Bridge is a freeway and railway crossing of the Swan River in Perth, Western Australia.
Made up of two road bridges and a railway bridge constructed at a part of the river known as the Narrows, located between Mill Point and Point Lewis, it connects the Mitchell and Kwinana Freeways, linking the city's northern and southern suburbs. The original road bridge was opened in 1959 and was the largest precast prestressed concrete bridge in the world. Construction of the northern interchange for this bridge necessitated the reclamation of a large amount of land from the river.
The bridge formed part of the Kwinana Freeway which originally ran for only 2.4 miles (3.9 km) to Canning Bridge. Over the following decades, the freeway system was expanded to the north and south, greatly increasing the volume of traffic using the bridge. As a result, in 2001, a second road bridge was opened to the west of the original bridge, and in 2005, the railway bridge was constructed in the gap between the two traffic bridges. Passenger trains first traversed the Narrows in 2007 with the opening of the Mandurah line.