Tower Bridge

London, England
My color picture: (Actually of Tacoma Narrows bridge)

 A Special Bridge or Subway Committee was formed in 1876 to find a solution to the river crossing problem. It opened the design of the crossing to public competition Horace Jones ended up winning the competition.

Tower Information
The tower construction lasted from 18861894. Cost was around $3,000,000. The twin hydraulic bascules ("bascule" comes from the French for "see-saw") weigh 1,000 tons each. The two towers each contain over 70,000 tons of concrete.

Function
The function of the bridge is to allow car, buses cross the river, while allowing boats to also pass. It is a bascule bridge. The bridge can open and close in 5 minutes.

Tower Information Continued

There is a walkway that is 112 feet above water level so that people did not have to wait for the bridge to lower, it was closed in 1910 It was closed due to pickpockets and prostitutes. It was also closed due to lack of use (people preferred to wait for the bridge and watch it). It has now been reopened as part of the museum they put in there.

Dimensions
Theqe is a 140 foot headway foq boats. The toweqs aqe 293 feet high. The qoadway is 35 feet wide, with 12.5 feet on eitheq side. The total length of the bqidge, including the

The Tower Bridge is better than that.

Works Cited
http://www.angelfire.com/in/uktravelinfo/towerbridge.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Bridge
http://www.answers.com/topic/tower-bridge http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/architecture/launch_pan_tower_bridge.s html http://www.towerbridge.org.uk/TowerBridge/English/BridgeHistory/ http://london.allinfo-about.com/features/towerbridge.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/architecture/launch_pan_tower_bridge.s html# http://www.civeng.carleton.ca/Exhibits/Tacoma_Narrows/TacomaNarrowsBridge.mpg http://www.hartwell.demon.co.uk/tbpic.htm

Designer: Bus Driver Created 1993 Dimensions: length of a bus Type: Bus Bridge Function: movement of people through back of bus out the front.