Emily Plihal
Local Journalism
Initiative Reporter
Peace River’s new bridge and old bridge rehabilitation is set to be completed in the summer of 2024.
The information was provided to Peace River town council at its regular meeting on July 10 by Transportation and Economic Corridors regional director Chase Milligen, who says work has taken longer than expected refurbishing the old bridge because unforeseen problems were discovered when work began.
“There have been a lot of challenges that we’ve encountered with this rehab,” says Milligen.
“Which is not uncommon with rehabs, especially such a large project of this scale. Right now we’re looking at potentially opening the bridge to traffic this winter.”
Milligen says they will first have to have discussions with the contractor to see if it’s ready to be open for traffic, and then the bridge will have to be shut again next summer for a couple months to complete work. An update is expected to be given to council later this summer on whether the east bound bridge will be open this winter.
“We’re still working on CN overpass bridge. There’s been some delays there, which will be a common theme with the rehab of this bridge with some of the joints and girds, we had to put in some new sheer blocks,” says Milligen.
“With it being on the side of the hill, there were some unanticipated forces that we encountered,” he adds.
Milligen says there have been some unexpected delays and the project is currently a year late on its initial anticipated completion date.
“We’ve encountered a number of issues with the construction, we had some issues with the 1960s design not lining up with what we did when our contractor went on site. There were some alignment issues, we had to adjust some of the bearings,” Milligen adds.
“Even the partial concrete repairs we did on the piers we had significant overruns on the quantities that we estimated. We couldn’t get an accurate depiction of what was required to go build the scaffolding. A lot of that is done from the shore and we do our best to estimate it, but until the contractor actually gets there and starts testing the concrete, jackhammering and all that, we don’t really know what it’s going to be.”
Mayor Elaine Manzer says that the community is happy with the bridge work.
“The town is very pleased with the new bridge and like everyone is looking forward to the work being done on the arched bridge,” Manzer says.
“It’s great that work on the arched bridge is now anticipated to be completed by the summer of 2024. The unexpected extra work needs to be done and will take time.”
Manzer says Peace River residents are eager for the work to be completed. She notes West Peace and Shaftsbury residents are likely the most eager, as they currently need to yield when they enter the highway to cross the new bridge. She says when the speed limits on the bridge changes back to 80 km/h, people will appreciate not having to slow down as much.
She also adds that having the arched bridge completed will take some of the pressure off the new bridge and its traffic.
“At the time that some traffic studies were done, the arched bridge had about 17,000 vehicles drive it each day,” explains Manzer.
“The bridge was very narrow and anyone walking or biking on the side felt the movement of the traffic. Separating the traffic with eastbound traffic using the arched bridge and westbound using the new bridge with the north lane becoming the turning lane for the Pines and West Peace/Shaftsbury and the hidden gem of the new pedestrian walkway are welcomed by everyone.”
Manzer adds that the Town and Alberta Transportation and Economic Corridors would like to see the work completed sooner than the new 2024 expected date, but when dealing with a bridge that has had a lot of hard use in its over 50 years, there are bound to be unanticipated issues.
“We are very happy the Province budgeted the dollars for both bridges and the approaches when they did as costs are continually rising,” says Manzer.