It has become one of Perth’s busiest and most important river crossings, carrying nearly 200,000 vehicles every weekday.

But it took more than a century of procrastination and debate before the construction of the Narrows Bridge finally began 60 years ago this month.

Even then, it remained a contentious project.

Some people condemned the reclamation of parts of the Swan River to support the bridge — a plan described by prominent architect Harold Boas as vandalism.

Camera Icon An overhead gantry crane used to build the bridge.

And when deputy premier John Tonkin announced it would be called Golden West Bridge, it created a backwash of public protest.

Ultimately, people power won. It was named after the stretch of water between Mill Point and Point Lewis which had become known as The Narrows.

Debate over the need for the bridge began in 1849 when The Narrows was identified as a good bridge site.

A formal proposal was developed in 1899 but the estimated cost of £13,000 was considered too great. Two years later, the Public Works Department came up with another plan for a 274m timber bridge but it came to nothing.

Camera Icon Work in progress in the early stages.

Surveys in 1954 found that traffic over the Causeway — the only river crossing between Perth and Fremantle — had more than doubled in five years and a design which would “harmonise with the aesthetics” of The Narrows area was approved in 1956. In March 1957, the contract to build the bridge was awarded to Danish company Christiani and Nielsen in a joint venture with local company J.O. Clough and Son.

Preliminary work began on April 1. The first permanent pile was driven in August 1957.

The 396.5m bridge included six lanes with footpaths on both sides. The overall structure was built as five individual spans, with the longest being 98m. Each of the sections were individually prestressed using a hydraulic jack and joined by high-tensile continuity cables.

Camera Icon Construction viewed from Kings Park.

When the Narrows Bridge was officially opened on November 13, 1959, it was the biggest precast, pre-stressed concrete bridge in the world.

It had cost £1.5 million. Complementary projects — the construction of the Kwinana Freeway between the bridge and Canning Highway and the land reclamation using 3.4 million cubic metres of sand — bumped the cost up to £3.5 million.

Increasing congestion on the crossing during the 1970s led to the bridge being widened to seven lanes.

But by 1998, the volume of traffic using the bridge had increased again.

Carrying over 155,000 vehicles every day, it had become the busiest piece of freeway in Australia.

Instead of widening the bridge again, a separate road bridge was built to run parallel to the original to carry six lanes of traffic. It opened in February 2001.

A third bridge was built in the 6m gap between the road bridges for trains to cross on the new Mandurah line.

It was open by December 23, 2007.