DARTMOUTH, NS—The Cherry Street North bridge is a long way from home. Right now, it’s sitting, sleek and streamlined, brilliant white and red against a clear blue sky in the backyard of the manufacturing facility of Cherubini Bridges and Structures in Dartmouth, across the harbour from Halifax.
Soon its ride will arrive — a barge onto which the bridge will be loaded, then shipped all the way up the St. Lawrence River until it arrives at its final destination — the Port Lands in Toronto.
There, it will be one of the more iconic puzzle pieces fitted to Waterfront Toronto’s ambitious project to turn an industrial wasteland at the foot of the Don River into a verdant green community space with the rerouted river meandering through.
Cherry Street North is the baby of the family. Of the four bridges — two at Cherry Street North, one each at Cherry Street South and Commissioners Street — that will connect the yet-to-be constructed Villiers Island to mainland Toronto, it weighs in at a paltry 375 tonnes over its 57-metre length.