Esplanade Riel is a pedestrian bridge located in Winnipeg , Manitoba . It was named in honour of Louis Riel .
9-556: It is a side-spar cable-stayed bridge which spans the Red River connecting downtown Winnipeg and The Forks historic area with St. Boniface ; it is paired with a vehicular bridge, the Provencher Bridge . The bridge includes an architectural composite tower that is prestressed with a cantilevered and stayed semi-circular plaza area at the base of the tower. The plaza provides space for commercial activities and as well as
18-787: A grand opening in the summer of 2004, the Esplanade Riel was co-designed by architects Guy Préfontaine and Étienne Gaboury of Gaboury Préfontaine Perry Architects Inc. The original drawing rests in the Engineering building of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. The Esplanade Riel was built as part of the Provencher Twin Bridges project, a $ 72 million project which included a new four-lane divided vehicular bridge as well as new roadways and sidewalks linking
27-565: A restaurant. The Esplanade Riel was the only bridge with a restaurant in North America. Its first restaurant was a Salisbury House . Salisbury House is a chain restaurant local to Winnipeg. The next tenant was Chez Sophie sur le pont (on the bridge), which opened in the summer of 2013 and closed in February 2015. The Esplanade Riel has become a landmark and is used in many promotional materials. Opened to foot traffic in 2003 and having
36-464: Is instead cantilevered from one side. The Esplanade Riel illustrated is located in Winnipeg , Manitoba , Canada. This bridge is intended for pedestrian use only and has a restaurant in its base. In the example below the cable paths are aligned with the bridge centerline, so that structurally it differs only in the transfer of stresses through the tower to the foundation. The side-spar principle
45-471: Is not limited to a straight bridge, however. The tower could be offset and the bridge deck wrap around the spar in an arc, e.g., Chords Bridge in Jerusalem. Such a bridge would be particularly suited for use in the confines of a canyon, where the road is brought in the upstream direction down one side, crosses a stream, and turns back to a downstream direction on the other side. By placing a large portion of
54-502: The Alsace region of France . Chez Sophie closed on February 2, 2015. Mon Ami Louis opened as the new tenant in July 2015, serving more "approachable" fare, as opposed to haute cuisine . It closed in 2020. Side-spar cable-stayed bridge A side-spar cable-stayed bridge may be an otherwise conventional cable-stayed bridge , but its cable support does not span the roadway , and
63-559: The bridges to Downtown Winnipeg and Waterfront Drive. In January 2013 the City of Winnipeg terminated the lease with Salisbury House and in March the city approved a five-year lease agreement with the French restaurant Chez Sophie sur le pont . The original Chez Sophie, founded in 2005, is located on Avenue de la Cathedrale. The restaurants are operated by Stephane and Sophie Wild, who are from
72-408: The spar, could be supported by cables anchored in the canyon walls (where conditions are suitable). This subtype should not be confused with an asymmetrical single tower cable-stayed bridge, which possesses a single tower on one side of the gap to be crossed (see Rama VIII Bridge ), nor with the cantilever spar cable-stayed bridge , which has span supporting cables on only one side of the tower along
81-518: The turn on the bridge, rather than on the approaches, the turn may be made more gentle, allowing faster traffic. This would require more torsional (twisting) rigidity in the roadbed than would a straight bridge. A bridge of this type (supported by a spar), traveling through a much smaller arc, was one of the original proposals for the eastern span replacement of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge . Similar bridges, without
#366633