Welland By-Pass west and by the by-pass channel to the east. Welland By-Pass The Welland By-pass, completed in 1973, was a massive construction project on the Welland Canal in Ontario, Canada. A new channel long was constructed, providing a shorter, more direct alignment between Port Robinson and Port Colborne and by-passing downtown Welland. The project helped improve navigation along the canal and alleviated problems the presence of a busy ship canal was causing in Welland. Although the city of Welland had originally grown around the canal, by the 1960s the constant interruptions in the flow of the vehicular and rail traffic through
Welland Canal, bridge 13 the Welland streetcar system (the Niagara, Welland and Lake Erie railway) was slated for abandonment before the bridge was actually opened and this track was never installed. The bridge is long and has a skew of approximately 22.5 degrees - meaning that the towers and span are off square by this amount. The reason that the skew is required can be seen from the old picture of the second canal bridge above - the canal does not run at a 90 degree angle to Main Street. While a bridge out of alignment with the road was acceptable in the 1840s,