By Sarah Stone

Old St. Louis bridge still acceptable for current village, RM needs

Apr 3, 2013 | 6:12 AM

The Rural Municipality of St. Louis is anxious to see the construction of the new bridge, but not concerned with a potential delay.

A couple weeks ago the truck hauling the girders for the new bridge from Manitoba to the construction had flipped onto its side, pushing back the date of delivery to the unforeseeable future.

The Ministry of Highways said due to this incident they are unsure if the construction of the new bridge will meet its fall deadline.

RM of St. Louis Reeve Henry Gareau said the potential delays will affect big haulers passing through the village, but not necessarily the businesses and economy in the RM.

“As far as local traffic, we’re still crossing on the old St. Louis Bridge, but it’s the businesses and the trucks [that are affected] because they have to be a pretty low weight restriction there on the bridge now,” Gareau said.

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“It affects all the farmers. Everybody ships grains by semis now; mind you most of the semis are going south anyway, so for the RM of St. Louis, not too many businesses are affected.”

Weight restrictions on the current bridge have been reduced even further after an overweight truck crossed over the winter causing damage to the structure, which had to be repaired.

Currently only vehicles that weigh less than 20 tonnes and are less than 3.6 metres wide can cross the bridge; those that do not meet these restrictions must pass by way of Birch Hills or Saskatoon.

Mayor of St. Louis Les Rancourt is also not concerned with a potential delay caused by the hauling accident.

“It’s probably not going to impact us a whole lot. We still have the traffic that’s coming through St. Louis so that’s good and so any delay to the other doesn’t really impact us that much, in a negative way anyway,” Rancourt said.

“We don’t have any real businesses that rely on heavy equipment,” he said, giving the exception of a couple farmers surrounding St. Louis who used to utilize the centre lane of the bridge to haul their larger pieces of equipment.

Despite this, the sentiment “the sooner the better” applies in the minds of both officials, especially with construction passing the two-year mark back in January.

“Some people don’t like crossing the old bridge, so we have the fact that some people are maybe are not going to come out our way until the new bridge built,” Rancourt said.

Gareau said he is very familiar with the current state of the old bridge and described it as “scary” to cross.

“We’re all anxious to have that new bridge in place. PA is the bridge-way to the North, but you still have to get to PA,” Gareau said.

sstone@panow.com

On Twitter: @sarahstone84