By Thia James

UPDATE: Hole under repair on Diefenbaker Bridge

Oct 1, 2014 | 11:31 AM

Repair crews are on site on the Diefenbaker Bridge to repair a thick textbook-sized hole that has formed in the pavement.

The City of Prince Albert, in a statement, said there will be restrictions affecting the northbound lane while inspections and surface repairs take place. The lane restriction took effect at 8 a.m. on Wednesday morning and it will be in place for an indefinite period of time.

Acting public works director Wes Hicks said it is hard to determine why the hole formed, but he said the city has had very wet seasons for the last several years. “And it doesn’t take much moisture to get underneath the asphalt to start moving.”

City staff noticed there was a “small” depression in the left-hand northbound lane at the far north abutment of the Diefenbaker Bridge Wednesday morning, Hicks said.

The City then notified the department of highways and infrastructure, and then senior staff in the department of public works determined a small washout had occurred underneath the asphalt. Hicks said the washout occurred outside of the bridge’s concrete abutment.

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“It’s quite possible it may have taken more than a year to develop, because washouts always start out very small and they slowly grow,” Hicks said. “Now, it hasn’t been raining for the last month and a half, so it’s very possible that it’s from the spring and all the rains that we had in the spring.”

Crews will be jackhammering out the asphalt and then backfilling the washout. After the repair is complete in the left northbound lane, crews will move over to the right lane. Hicks said the City will need to assess whether the southbound lane will require repairs as well. He said it will take at least a day for each lane.

“It’s evident that the water was washing along the outside of the concrete wall and so once it gets underneath the asphalt, the potential is that it can run, instead of north-south, it can run east-west, along the abutment wall,” he said.

He said the rutting in the lanes is deeper as soon as you leave the bridge, so the potential is there that there is some erosion underneath. “So, to be proactive, we’re going to remove them all and replace it.”

The last bridge inspection took place after the 2011 bridge repairs stemming from the cracked girder. The next round of inspections on the Diefenbaker Bridge and all of the city’s bridges is set to take place next year.

He said the issue wouldn’t have been detected in an inspection because it’s all hidden.

“The only way you would have detected it [is] if you would have seen the pinhole developing through the asphalt,” he said.

And according to Hicks, the problems related to a washout do not pose either a safety issue or a risk of spreading to the rest of the bridge because it’s not on the bridge, but is affecting the earthwork around the bridge.

As for the future maintenance of the bridge, the City has applied for funding through the Urban Highway Connector Program for two separate projects relating to the bridge. The provincial program is used to fund the ongoing maintenance of connectors between urban centres.

The projects involve fixing the splashguards between the driving lanes and the pedestrian walkway and the outside guardrails for pedestrians along the edge of the bridge.

The City will find out whether its requests qualify for funding next year.

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames