Fairfield Bridge

Fairfield Bridge
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Coordinates
Carries	Motor vehicles, pedestrians
Crosses	Waikato River
Locale	Fairfield, Hamilton
Preceded by	Whitiora Bridge
Followed by	Pukete Bridge
Characteristics
Design	Tied-arch
Material	Concrete
Total length	139 metres (457 ft)
Number of spans	3
Piers in water	2
History
Designer	Stanley Jones
Constructed by	Roose Shipping
Construction begin	6 August 1934 (1934-08-06)
Opened	26 April 1937 (1937-04-26)
Statistics
Daily traffic	20,000
Heritage New Zealand - Category I

Fairfield Bridge is a tied-arch bridge on the Waikato River in Fairfield, Hamilton, New Zealand. It is one of six bridges in the city. It spans from River Road, on the east bank of the river, to Victoria Street, on the west side.

It was registered as a Category I 'Historic Place' with the New Zealand Historic Places Trust on 30 August 1990. The Great Race starts just north of the bridge, with the rowers passing under it during the race.

Design and construction

The bridge is 139 metres (457 ft) long, and has two land spans, and three arches which are 70 centimetres (28 in) wide, 40 metres (130 ft) long and 7.9 metres (26 ft) above the road at their highest point. The arches and spans are made from reinforced concrete. It was designed by Stanley Jones of Auckland, and Roose Shipping started construction in August 1934. The bridge was opened in April 1937 by the Minister of Public Works Bob Semple. It was the fourth large reinforced concrete tied-arch bridge in New Zealand, and the second over the Waikato River.

When the building of a bridge in the Fairfield suburb was proposed, many people felt that it would seldom be used. Sixty-five years later, in 2002, there were about 20,000 vehicles travelling across the bridge each day.

During the building of foundations for the bridges, an excavator came across a burial cave in the bank of the river. The preserved heads of several Māori were found in it. In 1991 a reconstruction project costing NZ$1.1 million took place, as the bridge was suffering the effects of concrete cancer, discovered in 1980.

During January 2011, the bridge was closed for three weeks for maintenance.

Motorcycle stunt

File:Fairfield Bridge at night.jpg

Fairfield Bridge at night

In 2009 Jonathan Bennett of the Mormon Few Stunt Crew was charged, and in 2010 was convicted, for dangerous driving for riding a motorcycle on the arches of Fairfield Bridge. The stunt was filmed and subsequently posted on YouTube.