A new temporary Bailey Bridge will provide a link between New Westminster and Coquitlam within a few weeks.
The City of New Westminster is borrowing a temporary bridge from the Ministry of Transportation until a decision about a permanent crossing is made. The existing bridge has been closed to vehicle traffic since the beginning of March because of concerns about its structural integrity.
“Hopefully it will be in place by early May,” said Jim Lowrie, the city’s director of engineering. “It’s relatively simple and straightforward.”
Lowrie said staff in Coquitlam are fully aware of the City of New Westminster’s plans for the bridge.
“We have notified the City of Coquitlam that we are putting in the replacement bridge,” he said. “We have provided them with the engineer’s report. It’s not a secret.”
The bridge was closed for a short time in February 2013, after cracks were found in the structure. New Westminster and Coquitlam shared the cost to repair the bridge at that time.
The latest problems with the bridge were detected as part of scheduled maintenance that was put in place after last year’s repairs were done.
“We scheduled maintenance on a quarterly basis,” Lowrie told The Record. “This was a scheduled routine maintenance, and what was found at that time was of sufficient concern to the bridge engineers that their recommendation is the bridge be closed until a replacement structure can be found.”
Associated Engineering inspected the bridge and expressed concerns that further repairs to the structure could result in the growth or formation of cracks at other locations, which it may not be able to identify or inspect before failure takes place.
“You would have to keep chasing it,” Lowrie said about repairs to the existing structure. “It’s a bit technical, but what they are saying is that you could repair the cracks in the present location but the load is going to shift elsewhere on the bridge so you would be chasing it, and you would have to inspect it probably on a weekly basis. And, you would still have to have a weight restriction on it of 15 tonnes. Our conclusion was it is best to bring in the replacement bailey bridge – it’s relatively inexpensive and it gives full traffic volume.”
The borrowed bridge won’t have a weight restriction and won’t require ongoing inspections.
According to Lowrie, the City of New Westminster doesn’t have to pay the province to use the bridge, but it must pay to transport and install it at its location in the Braid industrial area. The cost is estimated to be around $75,000.
“We did have a cost estimate for repairs – it’s not repairs for the bridge itself but what you could do is what they call a structural backup,” he said about the existing bridge. “What that is is providing additional structural members under the bridge, but that would cost about $100,000. It would require weekly inspections, and would have to be limited to 15 tonnes. It just gets a small service vehicle over.”
The fate of the Bailey Bridge has been a longstanding issue between the two neighbouring cities, with New Westminster preferring a permanent one-lane structure and Coquitlam wanting a crossing with at least two lanes.
According to Lowrie, the province is currently considering the appointment of an arbitrator who will oversee the matter. He said the arbitrator would determine the process to be followed by the two municipalities.
