By Andrew de Souza

City to allow oversized loads on bridge

Oct 5, 2011 | 5:40 PM

The city will be allowing oversized loads on the Diefenbaker Bridge on Oct. 11 and plan on delaying traffic in order to do it.

By appointment only, drivers will be able to apply to the city to have an oversized load go across the bridge from 10 a.m.– 11 a.m., as long as the load is below the current 15-tonne weight limit.

According to city operations manager Alain Trudel, both lanes will have to be closed for about five minutes in order to facilitate the vehicles.

“Depending on what kind of vehicle it is, once it’s on the bridge it’s a matter of minutes before it crosses the bridge,” he said.

“It’ll just be a matter of us logistically staging them on either end of the city, setting up a time and a communication system so that when we’re ready, they’re ready and we have minimal traffic interruption.”

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He said the demand was so high that the city wanted to help local businesses and farmers.

“There’s always been a lot of requests for that and in the interim, until we know the fate of the bridge, we’ve decided to resume that.”

Trudel said the city will carry on the program as long as the bridge is in need of repairs. He added that if demand was high enough they’d also introduce a time slot for in the afternoon.

Anyone interested in applying to cross the bridge can call the city’s public works department at 953-4900. Only vehicles that have made an appointment will be allowed to cross, even if they arrive during the designated hours.

adesouza@panow.com