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Peter D.A. Warwick reported additional information on this bridge: The old Martindale Road bridge over the QEW once carried the St. Catharines - Port Dalhousie streetcar line of the Niagara, St. Catharines and Toronto Railway. When streetcar service ended in 1950 part of the line was kept in place for freight. Diesel engines took over from electric in 1960 and the line over the bridge was removed in 1965. You could still see where the tracks had been.
This bridge built in 1939, making it a dinosaur for an expressway bridge. Opened in 1937, the QEW is not only the oldest in Canada, but also among the oldest limited access highways in North America, and this bridge was a surviving example of the original construction of this freeway. The QEW was opened around the time that the Pennsylvania Turnpike was under construction in the United States. The Pennsylvania Turnpike was noted as the first long-distance limited access highway in the United States. Therefore a case could be made that the QEW was the first long-distance limited access highway in North America.
Although simple structurally, this bridge features the decorative lines and pier design that you might expect from a 1930s concrete bridge, making it a detailed and attractive structure. Also, it is unusual because in addition to two lanes, it appears to have also carried a railroad, which is long gone. The beams on this half of the bridge, now unused, are thicker, and the pier has more concrete, featuring a shorter arch on this half of the bridge. All of this makes for a fascinating and historically significant bridge.
The weather was poor during the documentation of this structure, yielding extremely poor photos. However poor photos are better than none. The bridge has been demolished and replaced, so it is no longer possible to ever photograph this bridge again.
This historic bridge has been demolished. This map is shown for reference purposes only.
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