Tasman Bridge - Photo with kind permission from Leesa Shaw This photo reminded me how important the Tasman Bridge was to the development of the Eastern Shore and thus South Arm. After being able to be reached only by water transport i.e. a succession of ferries, the first Bridge, proposed almost one hundred years earlier, was finally erected in 1944. The design was a novel engineering feat- a laterally arched floating bridge with a middle section that could be raised with lifts to allow for shipping. Unfortunately, the vast increase in traffic, enhanced by the postwar baby boom and increasing affluence which permitted private car ownership, soon meant that the two lane bridge was inadequate. These figures from John Sargent's " Derwent River Connections," (2004: 78) tell the story. In 1924 the public ferry P.S. Kangaroo carried 120 vehicles a day, doing doing 14 trips daily,. By 1924 the S.S. Lurgurena was doing 38 trips dai...
Practising Geographer - nature culture places people