| Bridge Name: | Captain Cook Bridge |
| Official Name: | Captain Cook Bridge |
| Locale: | Brisbane, Queensland, Australia |
| Carries: | Pacific Motorway |
| Crosses: | Brisbane River |
| Begin: | 1968 |
| Complete: | 1972 |
| Cost: | $24 million[1] |
| Designer: | Albert Contessa |
| Contracted Designer: | Co-Ordinator Generals Department |
| Material: | Concrete box girder |
| Builder: | Transfield Constructions |
| Coordinates: | -27.4806°N 153.0291°W |
| Traffic: | ~ |
| Preceded: | Goodwill Bridge |
| Followed: | Story Bridge |
| Named For: | Captain James Cook |
The Captain Cook Bridge is a road bridge that carries the Pacific Motorway across the Brisbane River in Brisbane, in the state of Queensland, Australia. It was built exclusively for vehicular traffic and was completed in late 1972. The bridge had its naming ceremony on 13 December 1972, with it opening in January/February 1973. A once only pedestrian walk event across the bridge happened shortly before it was opened to vehicular traffic on 21 January 1973, organised by the Rotary Club of Stones Corner.[2] The bridge crosses at the South Brisbane Reach of the river, linking Gardens Point in the Brisbane central business district on the north side to Kangaroo Point and South Brisbane on the southside.
Captain Cook Bridge is constructed as a multispan, precast prestressed concrete free-cantilever bridge with drop-in mid-spans. Comprising a dual carriageway that creates two separate bridges, one for each direction of traffic, heading north–south over the Brisbane River. Each bridge carries four lanes of traffic in one direction and links the M3 Pacific Motorway to the M3 Riverside Expressway. It is the main route from the city's south into the Brisbane central business district.[3]
At the time of completion, the main span of held the world record for this type of structure for a period of three months, when it was superseded by the Harada Bridge in Japan with a span of .[4]
The structure is Queensland's busiest traffic bridge with more than one million vehicles crossing it weekly in 2007.[5]
Downstream from the Captain Cook Bridge is the Story Bridge, while the Goodwill Bridge is the next crossing upstream.
Concerns were raised in 2007 about the structure's integrity after it was revealed that contractors who attached a gantry to the bridge had drilled numerous holes which had damaged steel reinforcement bars. After investigations were completed it was concluded that the damage was insignificant as only 57 vertical steel bars out of had been cut.[6]
A maintenance project, started in late 2019, and estimated to cost $26 million, was still ongoing in July 2022.[7]