The new-and-improved twinned Bailey bridge is set to open to motorists a year after its predecessor was closed for good.
When the route through the Braid industrial area reopens to motorists in March, they will be able to travel via two new crossings, rather than the single-lane crossing that served the area for many years. The crossing has been closed to vehicles since March 2014, when it was deemed to be structurally unsafe.
“The second bridge is in,” said Jim Lowrie, the city’s director of engineering. “They do have to put the decking on it.”
Lowrie said it’s expected to take about a week to lay the decking on the second crossing road network in the area.
“Previously there was a single bridge. Now you are putting a second bridge immediately upstream of the existing bridge, so what you have to do is realign the existing road and widen the road on the bridge approaches on both sides of the river,” he said. “To widen the bridge approaches on both sides of the river, that requires some embankment work, some fill work.”
While contractors have “had some pretty good production in the past few weeks because of the mild weather,” Lowrie stressed that the work is weather dependent.
“The worst was doing the in-stream works, the piling and doing the understructure, the superstructure. That work is all done,” Lowrie said. “The worst of it is done. The piling work, which is probably the toughest piece of the work, was done.”
Recent media reports stated there’s been a further delay to the construction project and said the bridge wouldn’t be open until the spring.
Keith Whiteley, the city’s project manager, said many of the delays are related to installation of the first crossing.
“They have installed the second bridge,” he told the Record Jan. 23. “They are working on the decking right now. There are a few little things to be done next week. The contractor who is doing the bridge figures they’ll be out by the end of next week which is Jan. 30.”
Whiteley said it’s estimated the roadwork on either side of both crossings will take about 30 days to complete.
“There is a fair amount of gravel to be moved and so forth,” he said. “We want it done properly. You can do it really quickly, but you’d be in there doing repairs all the time. I’m trying to get this thing done properly.”
The original memorandum of understanding between the cities of New Westminster and Coquitlam stated that the project would be complete by September 2014.
Along with some complications dismantling the old bridge that had been installed in 1993, hydro delays, some fisheries’ timelines, contractors missing days to do mandatory training and Christmas work schedules have stalled the project.
“We are looking for the middle of March, by the time the roadworks are done,” Whiteley said. “Our goal is by the middle of March, worst case scenario if we get weather like this.”
New Westminster is footing the entire bill for the first crossing, which cost about $600,000, and is cost-sharing the $1.2 million price tag for the second crossing with Coquitlam.
Whiteley said the new structures are built to today’s standards, which are a bit higher than those of the former bridge.
“By going to a stronger bridge, there will be less maintenance to us in the long run,” he said. “These bridges are anticipated, with maintenance, to last a lot longer.”
