65 Sensational Facts About Sydney Harbour Bridge

The Sydney Harbour Bridge is one of the world’s most famous bridges and a symbol of Sydney and Australia. In this article, you’ll learn several fun and interesting facts about Sydney Harbour Bridge, or as the locals call it, “the Coathanger”!

General Sydney Harbour Bridge Facts

• The Sydney Harbour Bridge, along with the Sydney Opera House 550 meters away, is the most famous landmark in Sydney. 

• The bridge spans a narrow section of the Sydney Harbour, connecting the Central Business District to the North Shore.  

• When the bridge was first built, it saved travelers ferry rides or a 20 km (12.5 mi) commute that involved crossing five other bridges to reach the same point on the other side of the harbor.  

• Sydney Harbour Bridge is nicknamed “the Coathanger” due to its arched shape.  

• With an arch span of 503 m (1650 ft) and a total length of 1149 m (3770 ft), the Sydney Harbour Bridge is the 8^th longest arch bridge in the world.  It is around five times longer than Tower Bridge in London.

• Over 160,000 cars, 400 trains, 2000 bicycles, and thousands of pedestrians cross the bridge every day.  

Suggested Read: 25 Interesting Facts About Sydney, Australia

• The main roadway across the bridge (6 lanes, both directions) is the Bradfield Highway. At 2.5 kilometers (1.6 mi), it is one of the shortest highways in Australia. The number of lanes in each direction changes according to traffic flow. Another 2 lanes (southbound only) are for the Cahill Expressway.  

• The Sydney Harbour Tunnel runs below the Sydney Harbour. It was built to relieve traffic congestion on the bridge. It starts near the same point as the bridge at the northern end, runs south at a 30-degree angle away from it, and passes near the Sydney Opera House.  

• A toll ($2.50 to $4) is charged with e-TAGs for driving across the bridge in the southbound direction. The original toll when the bridge was first built was six pence for a car or motorcycle and three pence for a horse and rider.  

• Many tourists visit the bridge, including the southeast pylon, which houses a museum. The museum includes 200 steps leading to an observation deck called Pylon Lookout, which is open every day except Christmas.  

• An Australian flag and a New South Wales flag fly at the top of the bridge and must be replaced twice yearly.  

• For 19 days every year, the Aboriginal Australian flag replaces the NSW one. Still, many people have petitioned and raised $300,000 to erect a new pole so the Aboriginal flag can be placed permanently. 

• The bridge, along with Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef, is one of Australia’s most iconic attractions.  

• The Sydney Harbour Bridge has been the focal point of numerous protests, parades, and celebrations, including New Year’s Eve fireworks every year since 1993.  

• The Bradfield Highway is technically a Travelling Stock Route, so herds of livestock can be taken across it (at night only, with notice). The last time this was done was in 1999. 

• Sydney Harbour Bridge was a magnet for suicide jumpers until a suicide barrier was installed. The 59-meter falls has an 85% fatality rate.  

• Paul Hogan, star of the Australian film Crocodile Dundee, worked on the construction of the Sydney Opera Bridge. He later said that his experience stopping people from jumping from the bridge helped prepare him for the famous ledge scene in Crocodile Dundee II. 

• The construction company was not fully paid the total cost of the bridge, AU£6.25 million (over $1.5 billion in today’s money), until 1988. 

• BridgeClimb guides tourists to climb up the southern half of the bridge’s arch, reaching its highest point. The climb costs $198-388/person. Over 4 million people have climbed, including one over 100 years old. 

• Celebrities including Oprah, Katy Perry, Hugh Jackman, James Cameron, Will Smith, David Hasselhoff, James Blunt, Luke Evans, Ben Stiller, and Gigi Hadid have all climbed the bridge.  

• 89-year-old Lloyd Poulton has climbed the bridge 125 times, more than anyone else.  

• Many couples have gotten married at the top of the bridge, including the first gay marriage in 2018. 

• On International Day of Yoga (June 21) in 2016, a yoga session was held at the top of the bridge. 

• The top of the bridge has also hosted a Chinese New Year dragon dance, Maori War Dance, a Tai Chi event, and a dance party.  

• Bungee jumping at Sydney Harbour Bridge is not permitted. 

Structural Facts About the Sydney Harbour Bridge

• The bridge has eight traffic lanes (six original ones and two that replace earlier tram lines). On the eastern side, there is a pedestrian path, on the western side, two tracks of the North Shore Railway line, and a path for cyclists west of the railway lines. 

• The bridge reaches a height of 134 m (440 ft), with a clearance of 49 m (161 ft) below it.  

• On hot days, the expansive steel of the bridge can cause it to grow 18 cm (7.1 in) taller.  

• At the end of each arch is a pair of 89-metre (292 ft) concrete and granite pylons. They serve no structural purpose but were added to provide visual balance.  

• Today, the pylons are used for various purposes: the southeaster one contains a museum and 360° lookout, the southwestern one supports cameras, and the northern ones house chimneys for fumes from the Sydney Harbour Tunnel. 

• With a deck 48.8 m (160 ft) wide, it was the widest long-span bridge in the world until it was overtaken by Port Mann Bridge in Vancouver, which is 65 m wide, in 2013. The current title holder is the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, at 78.74 meters on its eastbound section.  

• The bridge’s arch is made up of 28 arch trusses, ranging in height from 18 m (59 ft) at the centre to 57 m (187 ft) at the ends.  

• All the steel in the bridge weighs 52,800 tonnes (52,800,000 kg or 116,402,116 pounds).  

• 79% of the steel used for the bridge was imported from England. The rest came from Newcastle, Australia.  

• Over 6 million rivets hold the bridge together, most of which were driven by hand.  

• Every time the bridge is repainted, 485,000 m2 (120 acres) of the surface area must be painted, requiring 30,000 liters of paint. Two robots, named Rosie and Sandy, remove the old paint before this is done.  

Historical Facts About the Sydney Harbour Bridge

• Plans to construct a bridge across the harbor went back as early as 1815. 

• In 1840, naval architect Robert Brindley proposed a floating bridge across the harbor. 

• More proposals for the bridge were made in 1857, 1879, and 1880. 

• In 1900, the New South Wales government held a competition for the bridge’s design, but the winner’s design was never used. 

• In In 1914, John Bradfield was appointed chief engineer of the project. He is also designed the city’s first subway system and is known as the “Father of Modern Sydney.”  

• The city hired the British firm Dorman Long of Middlesbrough to design and build the Sydney Harbour Bridge. They based it on their earlier design of the Tyne Bridge in Newcastle, England, which itself was modeled on Hell Gate Bridge in New York City.  

• Dorman Long’s head engineer on the project, Sir Ralph Freeman, did much of the bridge’s design work, and many consider him to be the bridge’s true main engineer, not John Bradfield.  

• The bridge was constructed from July 28, 1923 to March 19, 1932.  

• 1400 people worked on the Sydney Harbor Bridge. 16 of them lost their lives during construction, and only 2 of them died from falling off the bridge. 

• The construction displaced hundreds of families living on either side of the bridge.  

• The bridge was assembled in sections on the adjacent land, which now houses the Luna Park amusement park.  

• The bridge was built out from either side of the harbor, meeting at the middle in 1930.  

• The building of the bridge coincided with the construction of a network of underground railways in the Central Business District. 

• Before the NSW premier could cut the ribbon during the bridge’s opening ceremony, a man rode up on a horse and slashed the ribbon with a sword in the “name of the people of New South Wales.” He was immediately arrested.  

• Up to 1 million people participated in various ceremonies and celebrations related to the opening of the bridge, which was impressive, given that the city’s population at the time was 1,256,000. 

• Several postage stamps featuring the bridge were released in the year of the opening.  

• That year, there was also a sharp rise in the baby names Archie and Bridget in honor of the bridge. 

• The bridge originally had two tram lines. In 1958, these were removed and replaced with extra lanes for vehicles on the western side of the bridge.  

• The conversion of tram lanes to regular traffic lanes led to huge traffic jams and was called “the greatest transport bungle in Sydney’s history.” 

• NSW police later used one of the tram tunnels leading to the bridge as a shooting practice area. 

• In 1973, Philippe Petit walked across a wire between the two pylons at the bridge’s southern end. 

• For the bridge’s 50^th anniversary in 1982, people were allowed to walk on its deck for the first time since its opening day. 

• The American Society of Civil Engineers awarded the Sydney Harbour Bridge a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1988, making it one of around 280 such landmarks in the world.  

• Construction of the Sydney Harbour Tunnel, below the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the harbor itself, began in 1988 and was completed in 1992.  

• On May 28, 2000, more than 250,000 people walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge to support reconciliation with Australia’s Aboriginal people. 

• For the Sydney Summer Olympics in 2000, the Olympic rings were displayed on the bridge, and the Olympic torch was carried across the bridge. 

• In 2007, Sydney Harbour Bridge was added to the Australian National Heritage List. Today, it is one of around 120 heritage sites across Australia that are featured on the list.  

• In January 2021, the railway deck was renovated, with 555 meters of timber portions replaced with concrete.  

• In 2022, a climate activist was sentenced to 8 months in prison for blocking Sydney Harbour Bridge traffic during a protest.

• Current plans call for replacing 55 stairs providing access to the bridge’s northern end with a bicycle ramp, which would eliminate the need for cyclists to dismount when cycling to the bridge.