Queen's Wharf bridge lift

The team at Queen’s Wharf have completed one of the project’s most challenging milestones – lifting and affixing 60 tonnes of major structural steel that will support the northern end of the new Neville Bonner Bridge.

The Neville Bonner Bridge is Brisbane's first ever river bridge in more than 10 years with an expected 9,000 pedestrians walking across it each day. It will provide a link between the city's major entertainment precincts Queen's Wharf and South Bank.

The complex operation involved a year of planning and close collaboration with the local council and state road authorities as Brisbane's Riverside Expressway was closed and traffic redirected via toll roads and detours of up to 4km out of the city.

Over the course of 14 nights, 60 tonnes of steel was lifted into place using a 300 tonne mobile crane positioned just under the Riverside Expressway. The structure was secured by 420 bolts and now cantilevers 10 metres over the road.

One of the key challenges in the planning process was mitigating the risk of the heavy loads causing stress or movement in the surrounding road structure. Months of 3D Geotech modelling was required to assess the impacts, while specialised monitoring equipment was used throughout the operation to measure any small movements in the expressway structure.

The remainder of the bridge will be completed by an external contractor who will close the entire Riverside Expressway in late June to install the steel span on top of the cantilevered structure.

Congratulations to the project team and our sub-contractors on the safe and speedy completion of this incredibly complex operation.