Stonecutters Bridge celebrates its 10-year anniversary of helping traffic over the Rambler Channel

20.12.2019

To solve the challenges of a busy road with 100,000 cars moving every day, the Hong Kong Administrative Region decided that a bridge could solve the issue. Today, the Stonecutters Bridge functions as a gateway to the city and stands as a landmark in the Hong Kong skyline.

This December marks the 10-year anniversary of the cable-stayed bridge that crosses the Rambler Channel and forms the centrepiece of the section for the Route 8 project in Hong Kong – an East-West expressway linking the international airport and the urban areas of the Kowloon peninsula.

"Stonecutters Bridge has been a key to solving some of the urbanisation challenges in Hong Kong. The bridge has loosened up traffic and connected the various parts of the city. Vehicles can now avoid detours and traffic jams when driving from one side of the container harbour to the other. We are proud of being responsible for the detailed design of the Stonecutters Bridge", says Lars Hauge, Executive Vice President at COWI.

Constructing a bridge in a typhoon wind climate

With a main span of 1,018 metres, Stonecutters Bridge is one of the world's longest cable-stayed bridges with three lanes in each direction, and two bridge towers, one on Tsing Yi Island and one on Stonecutters Island. Rising 298 meters above sea level, the concrete and stainless-steel towers have become a recognisable symbol in the Hong Kong metropolitan area.

A central focus in the construction of Stonecutters Bridge was to ensure that it could withstand the typhoon wind climate in Hong Kong. The design of the bridge deck contains aerodynamic features including streamlined steel twin box-girder structure, which enables the bridge to withstand powerful typhoon winds.

A collaboration that accelerated bridge engineering

In collaboration with ARUP and DISSING + WEITLING architects, Stonecutters Bridge accelerated the technological development within bridge engineering. The construction with aerodynamic features was ground-breaking at the time and today serves as an example of the technological development which made it possible to construct a bridge in an area exposed to typhoons. The knowledge gained from the Stonecutters Bridge is being used worldwide for today's design of long span bridges.