The City of Edmonton says the time to decommission the High Level and Low Level bridges might be sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n
A report from city administration found the bridges \u201care nearing the end of their service life.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report states that maintaining the High Level Bridge for the next 75 years could require an investment of $1 billion or more.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are not just transportation infrastructure, they are historical landmarks and part of our identity as a city,\u201d Sara Nichols, deputy city manager of infrastructure with the City of Edmonton, said during a news conference on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the same time, many of these structures are over 100 years old, and responsible infrastructure management means planning now for future renewal and replacement.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we plan, we will maintain safety on these existing bridges, and we will minimize traffic disruptions while we build this generational investment in Edmonton’s transportation network.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city said at 113 years old, the High Level Bridge is beyond the end of its life cycle, making rehabilitation a high-risk, high-cost endeavour with an extended construction schedule.<\/p>\n
A variety of bridges have been undergoing renewal as the city works to manage the 300 bridges in Edmonton.<\/p>\n
Over the past several years, the city has invested significantly in maintaining and renewing bridges like the Walterdale and Groat Road bridges, and ongoing work on the Wellington, Dawson and Low Level bridges.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a budget that we had established around $200 million, and we are looking at something quite in excess of that,\u201d said Natalie Lazurko, director of transportation planning with the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe other thing to go with this is the rehabilitation would require significant duration of closure to complete the repairs, and so there’s significant disruption that you would experience with the rehabilitation work to extend the life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lazurko said while the rehabilitation could extend the bridge\u2019s lifespan by 10 to 15 years,\u00a0 the high price tag makes it difficult to justify.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re not doing construction on multiple bridges at once, and we’re building the new ones while we can still use the old ones,\u201d said Nichols.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so I think that should relay some of the concerns of folks in terms of their commute.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added that as the city’s population continues to grow, generational investments are needed.<\/p>\n
As the city faces a tight budget, Nichols said her department is working closely with the city\u2019s finances team and will work with other levels of government to look at the funding available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The City of Edmonton says the time to decommission the High Level and Low Level bridges might be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,226231,105143,23752,249958,249959],"class_list":["post-680894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-city-administration","tag-city-of-edmonton","tag-edmonton","tag-sara-nichols","tag-transportation-infrastructure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}