Bruce Highway (Bowen - Ayr), Burdekin River Bridge, rehabilitation program

The Queensland Government is delivering an ongoing rehabilitation and maintenance program for the Burdekin River Bridge. This program is essential to preserving the structural integrity of the bridge and ensuring it remains a safe and reliable crossing for all road users.

Benefits

• Improves safety
• Improves network efficiency
• Better active transport
• Improves ride quality

Key features

This important program of works will see a wide variety of repairs and safeguarding works carried out on the Burdekin River Bridge, including:

• patch-painting on sections of the bridge
• structural repairs on sections of the bridge
• abrasive blasting of rusted areas
• ongoing internal and external inspections of the bridge structure and approaches to prioritise maintenance works
• frequent cleaning, repairs, and inspection of the pedestrian walkway.

Funding

The project is jointly funded by the Australian and Queensland governments. Investment ID 3347830

Current status

Works to be completed over the coming year include: 

• frequent cleaning, repairs, and inspection of the pedestrian walkway
• lower and upper chord spot painting 
• lower and upper chord repairs
• lower gantry maintenance  
• ongoing sloping chord replacement works
• upper lateral angle bracing replacement works
• top gantry maintenance and rehabilitation. 

Burdekin River Bridge, rehabilitation program location map

Burdekin River Bridge facts

• Construction of the Burdekin River Bridge was completed in 1957. The Burdekin River Bridge maintenance and rehabilitation program is the first major structural rehabilitation work undertaken since its construction. 
• During construction of the Burdekin River Bridge, 235 people were employed at any one time with more than 300,000 high strength bolts and 7,000 tonnes of steel being used. 
• The Burdekin River Bridge is only 46m shorter in length than the Sydney Harbour Bridge and comprises 10 main spans (each 250 feet) and 22 approach spans with a total length of approximately 3,620 feet (1,103m). 
• The Burdekin River Bridge is an important link in the national transportation network and is a strategic, high flood immunity link between north and south Queensland. 
• The alternate road route to Townsville via Collinsville-Belyando-Charters Towers is 400km longer with some sections of unsealed road. 
• Over 10,000 vehicles cross the Burdekin River Bridge each day.
• On Tuesday 5 October 2010, the Burdekin River Bridge received an Engineering Heritage National Landmark award from Engineers Australia. This award recognises significant engineering heritage works that have been judged to be valuable to a group of people, or have contributed something of value to the nation, a region or to the practice of engineering. 

The Burdekin River Bridge view from the south-east river bank

Aerial view of the Burdekin River Bridge

Nightworks to complete sloping chord angle works

Aerial view of nightworks taking place to complete sloping chord angle works

Working on the downstream top chord (steel bridge deck) 

Project Update

Bridge closures

The safety of road users is our number one priority.

Full bridge closures are required from time to time to ensure that both motorists and workers on the bridge are always kept safe. Often, the size of the machinery required for these works means that there is insufficient room for other vehicles to cross the bridge and it must be closed to traffic when this equipment is in use. These full closures are usually undertaken at night to take advantage of the lowest traffic demand on the road.

We will provide advance notice of any full bridge closure, so that motorists can make alternative travel arrangements.

Day to day works

Maintenance works are happening on the bridge every day. These works usually involve patch painting, repairs, and inspections on various parts of the bridge, including the pedestrian walkway.

Sometimes, these works require single lane closures, walkway restrictions, with possible delays of up to 15 minutes. These works will generally occur from Monday to Friday, from 9.30am to 2.30pm.

If you are travelling via the Burdekin River Bridge during these hours, make sure you allow extra travel time in case of delays due to these maintenance works.