Plans for maintenance work on the 61-year-old Point Ellice Bridge, often called the Bay Street Bridge, are moving ahead with bids on the work due Feb. 28.
The City of Victoria is working with about $2.4 million in government funding, with $1.2 million coming from each of the provincial and federal governments.
The final price will likely be higher, but nowhere near the $105-million cost of the Johnson Street Bridge down the harbour.
Work is expected to begin in May and last four or five months and will add 30 years to the bridge’s life, said Philip Bellefontaine, Victoria’s transportation manager. This will be the first work on the bridge since a seismic upgrade in 2001-2002.
There will be no full closure of the 183-metre span, but traffic will be limited to one direction — westbound, from Victoria to Victoria West — for about two months.
“The reason is that maximizes the amount of space the contractors have, and it allows them to get in and out as quickly as possible,” Bellefontaine said.
“We know that there will some impacts to the movement of traffic. We are already doing planning work on the alternative routes.”
That means that when drivers are diverted from the bridge area they won’t come across other city work sites, he said.
“The other aspect to that is we’re looking at our traffic-signal timing to optimize the movement of traffic through key intersections.”
Bellefontaine said the work will include stripping the pavement off. “Anybody who’s driven over it in the last year or two knows that it’s starting to get a bit bumpy,” he said. “So this is a repaving project. While we’re there, we’re looking at the concrete deck and doing some repairs.”
All the exposed steel will be repainted, as well, Bellefontaine said.
“That will include the handrails and the streetlights, things like that.”
He said the work to be done is “very timely.”
“It’s important that we do this,” he said. “If we wait, those repairs will be more expensive in the future.”
Bellefontaine said the bridge will not look much different when the project is over.
“It’s going to be exactly the same from the public’s perspective,” he said. “It might be a slightly different colour, but it’s going to be exactly the same bridge.”
No cycling work is planned, but there is a long-term concept for putting a new sidewalk on the north side of the bridge and then widening the road deck for bikes.
