City orders inspections of its 10 bridge structures

The City of Prince Albert has hired an engineering firm to inspect all of the bridge structures within city limits.

On Monday, council approved administration’s recommendation to award Stantec Inc. a $149,760 contract to inspect all 10 bridges in the City’s inventory. In 2010, the City ordered inspections of all of the bridges then in its inventory, but a year later, three more were added after it signed onto the Urban Highway Connector Program.

The 2010 inspections cost the City $190,000, but that round of inspections included load ratings. Load ratings aren’t a part of this year’s inspections.

This year’s inspections will include the Diefenbaker Bridge, which is set to undergo $1.2 million surface repairs, to be paid for by the province.

City manager Jim Toye cited the recent study completed by Vemax Management Canada, which concluded that a second bridge is needed to ensure there is an alternate means to cross the river. The study also concluded that, until a second bridge is built, the City needs to take care of the infrastructure it has.  

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“One of the recommendations is to make sure we make regular checks on the bridges and that we implemented programs to ensure their longevity,” Toye said.

Last week, capital projects manager Wes Hicks told members of council that the Diefenbaker Bridge inspection won’t include the underwater piers, which were inspected last year. The inspection will include the deck, steel structure and the piers will be included in the inspection.

The inspections will be paid for by the City, even though a few of the structures are a part of the Urban Highway Connector network. Urban highway connectors are roads (along with bridges and overpasses on those roads) in a city that link up to a highway, such as Second Avenue West.

The Diefenbaker Bridge, the Highway 55 Timber Bridge and the Shellbrook Overpass are all situated along the Urban Highway Connector network.

“Certainly in a perfect world, that’s the way it would be,” Toye said of getting the province to fund inspections for these three structures.

“I mean, we would love for the province to pay for these. The province just did give us money under that program to do rehabilitation to the bridge regarding the pedestrian [walkway] and the side walls.”

There’s only so much money in the Urban Highway Connector Program, Toye added.

The City anticipated it could take on bridge inspections itself if it could get funding ofr the Diefenbaker Bridge repair project after talking with the government, he said.

Toye said the City wants to have the bridges evaluated in order to find out what type of work may need to be done within the next 10 years and where it will get the money to do that.

“Hopefully, it’s going to be through the Urban Highway Connector Program, but there’s no guarantee of that,” he said.

When the City applies for funding under the program, it’s in competition with other municipalities in the province, he added.

A timeline for when the inspections will happen has not been set.  The sooner the inspections happen, the better, and when it will least affect traffic, Toye said.

“I mean we’ve got already some major programs that are going to be going on in that area, with Second Avenue [West] going to be redone, with the guards and the splash guards being redone on the bridge this year, and then will be the inspections.

There will be road restrictions, but the City doesn’t anticipate having to close roads.

The next set of bridge inspections after this one likely won’t happen for another five years.

The list of structures included in this year’s inspection:

-1922: Little Red River Arch Bridge (Last inspected: 2010)

-1938: Central Avenue Viaduct (Last inspected: 2010)

-1959: Diefenbaker Bridge, north and southbound (Last inspected: 2010)

-1959: River Street Overpass (Last inspected: 2010)

-1959: Riverside Drive Overpass (Last inspected: 2010)

-1961: CN Railway Bridge (Last inspected: N/A)

-1965: Highway 55 Timber Bridge (To be repaired in 2015)

-1975: Little Red River Timber Bridge (Last inspected: 2010)

-1976: 6th Ave West Viaduct, north and southbound (Last inspected: 2010)

-1987: Shellbrook Overpass (Last inspection: 2014)

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames