The Dallington Bridge
Source: Kete
v1.0
The Dallington Bridge was originally built in the early 1880's at the expense of the landowners on Gayhurst Road. It was demolished in 1953 to make way for the Dallington Bridge v2.0.
Source: Bridge of the Week
v2.0
Built in 1953 it was demolished as a result of the 2011 earthquake.
Traffic over the bridge before the quakes reached 10,000 cars per day. After the quakes this was measured again in 2013 and had dropped to approximately 3,000 cars per day.
Following the earthquakes the Dallington Bridge v2.0 was severely damaged.
Construction on the new bridge took over a year and while closed residents of Dallington had to divert over the Stanmore Road bridge, using either the damaged River Road, or hastily repaired North Parade, or Avondale bridge depending on direction of travel.
The bridge repair timetable was quite specific.
Dallington Bridge - May 2018
v3.0 - 2015 +
The rebuilt Dallington bridge is a much sleeker design and has a wide shared footpath cycleway on either side.
From Stuff article 31 August 2015
Its piles consist of 1.2m diameter steel casings, driven 26m deep, into the gravels, which are then filled with reinforced concrete.
Costing $8.35 million and taking 14 months to build its return was very welcome to local residents.
Scirt executive general manager Ian Campbell and city councillor Glenn Livingstone spoke at the ribbon-cutting ceremony on 14 August 2015.
Campbell shared some stories about the challenges involved in the build.
"An unexpected issue arose during the driving of the piles when we encountered greater than expected artesian water pressure from the Riccarton gravels that the piles are founded on. This artesian pressure pushed the water level inside the piles higher than the new bridge deck," he said.
To contain the rising water while the crew was reaming out the steel casing to construct the piles, they had to increase the length of the steel casing to prevent water flooding over the top and down onto the work site below.
"We did that by welding a 5-metre long 'sacrificial riser' to extend the casing above the water line while we poured concrete into them and allowed it to set."
This " riser" was removed once the concrete had been placed.
Now in use, the bridge has become notorious with road users as the intersection of Avonside Drive, Gayhurst Road, Gloucester Street and Retreat Road appears to locals as being poorly designed and confusing for road users. The rise of the bridge and is edges obscure approaching traffic coming along Gayhurst Road for those on Avonside Drive, waiting to cross the intersection causing the occasional accident and many near misses.
In July 2018 there was a tragic death when a man walking his two dogs was struck by a car has he crossed Gayhurst Road at night just north of the bridge.
Articles on the event can be found here. stuff.co.nz, there was an update from the police a few days later.
The Dallington Residents Association with support form Councillor Glenn Livingstone put a submission to the Burwood Coastal Community Board to get the bridge looked at. A meeting and dialog was opened with traffic engineers and still continues.
Investigation on the death found the bridge not to be at fault, however opinion remains that it is still unsafe. An opinion article on this finding appears in the Star.