New study says P.A. needs 2nd bridge

A new study making a regional business case for a second bridge in Prince Albert has found that if the Diefenbaker Bridge were shut down completely for one day, the city’s economy could lose $1.85 million.

The City commissioned the study earlier this year from Vemax Management Canada. Researcher Paul Christensen presented his findings at Monday’s executive committee meeting. The study looked at the potential economic effects of varying degrees of traffic disruption on the Diefenbaker Bridge.

The study concludes that a second bridge is necessary – mainly to ensure that there’s an alternate means to cross the North Saskatchewan River that doesn’t involve a drive out to the Cecil Ferry or further.

After the meeting, members of the executive committee reacted to the study’s findings.

For Mayor Greg Dionne, the study reinforces that there is a need for a second bridge in Prince Albert. He said he already knew there was a need for another bridge. But he also pointed to the need for the bridge in a regional sense.

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“I think the biggest things that come out of the study, the 75 per cent of that traffic doesn’t start or end in the City of Prince Albert. So it clearly says it’s a provincial bridge.”

The study found that three quarters of those who use the Diefenbaker Bridge are either travelling through Prince Albert to get to another destination, or travelling from elsewhere into the city.

Coun. Mark Tweidt, too, agreed that this is a significant point that the study makes. He said he didn’t think the figure would be this high.

“That’s huge for us. We’ve always said we will include and pay our share, but we don’t believe our share should be the full amount,” he said. He added the City wants to do its fair share, but it wants the government of the day to step up.

“We know that the North is very important to our province, and it’s only going to grow, and I think that the report said the trucks are going to double in the next 10 years,” he said.

The economic cost of service disruptions 

For there to be a second crossing, the first, the Diefenbaker Bridge, would need to continue to serve the community.

For a structure which has a service life expected to end in 2035, preventing service disruptions on the Diefenbaker Bridge comes down to timely maintenance, according to Christensen. A second bridge would take years to build, and the existing bridge has to serve as one of the two bridges until it too is replaced.

He presented a host of scenarios, from the lower-impact lane restrictions and weight restrictions to the worst-case scenario of a complete shutdown of the bridge to vehicle traffic.  In the absolute worst-case scenario, Prince Albert’s economy could lose anywhere from $1.6 to $2.3 million – an average of $1.85 million – each day the bridge is closed.

During a lane closure, Christensen estimates that the economy would lose out on $21,000 to $267,000 each day. However, he said a one or two-day anticipated closure may have a negligible impact.

Christensen, while demonstrating the need for timely maintenance to prevent lane closures and other disruptions, noted that the City can only implement such maintenance if it receives timely contributions – funding – from the province.

“One of the issues is, if you don’t do it now, the bridge is not getting better,” he said. Christensen said that if there’s corrosion now on the steel girders, the corrosion won’t get better just because you wait – it’ll get worse. In that case, the corrosion will get worse over time, leading to more structural weakness, for example.

Tweidt is well aware of the negative legacy of past traffic disruptions on the bridge. He said the impact was detrimental.

“A lot of people have decided not to come through P.A. as a destination now, because of it. Those are just businesses. That’s not counting tourism and all those different things. So, I think the numbers’ [are] dead on or higher,” Tweidt said of Christensen’s economic loss projections.

But the disruptions don’t have a toll on economy alone – it also impacts the people who have to cross the river.

Disruptions on the bridge would have a significant effect on the travel times of those who live just north of the bridge within city limits. This is something that concerns Coun. Rick Orr.

Orr said he was speaking with a doctor earlier on Monday who wanted to know if the City could maintain Cloverdale Road. The Ward 2 councillor, who represents the City’s downtown and parts north of the bridge, said he thought of the doctor coming across the bridge during the discussion at the executive committee meeting.

The doctor, he said, is called into the city for emergencies.

“I really think we have two situations. One is the maintenance of our current bridge, with our partners from the provincial government, working with them to figure out how we can keep it going and as a viable crossing. And then getting on with the job.”

The executive committee recommended that council refers the study over to the corporate services department for a review and to become the subject of a report.

Beyond that, a non-partisan committee representing Northern communities will meet and discuss the report’s findings. Dionne said the committee will then figure out where to go from there.

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames