Work is nearing an end on the Point Ellice Bridge.
The 61-year-old span, also known as the Bay Street Bridge, has been closed to eastbound traffic since May 21, but should be open for two-way traffic again around the end of October.
The work is expected to add about 30 years to the bridge’s life.
“We’re into the last few weeks of the project,” City of Victoria transportation manager Philip Bellefontaine said. “It is an old bridge, and in its life it needs to have this kind of comprehensive maintenance work done on it to keep it going for the future.”
Since the start of the project, only traffic headed to Victoria West has been flowing.
That leaves motorists and commuters to brave the sometimes heavy traffic that results on the Johnson Street Bridge or to bypass construction by taking Admirals Road and Gorge Road East to get downtown. “I think people have got their patterns: when’s the good time to travel and so on,” Bellefontaine said.
The ongoing work is the first done on the bridge since a seismic upgrade in 2001-02. Despite all the work, the end product will look much the same as before, Bellefontaine said.
The final cost will be about $6.1 million, with federal and provincial governments contributing $1.2 million apiece.
Bellefontaine said the project has clearly had an impact on how people move around the city. That has prompted the city and contractors to look at ways to save time wherever possible, and to have workers take on longer days and weekends for certain tasks.
“People travelling over the bridge probably don’t realize just what a significant project this is,” he said.
“They’ve seen some railings replaced, they will have seen the road being repaved and some repairs to the concrete. But that really only represents probably 20 per cent of what’s been going on, on the bridge. The other 80 per cent is all underneath.”
That has included sandblasting of all the structural steel, complete repainting of the steel, replacement of the catwalk and upgrading the navigation lights.
“That must be frustrating to the public, not seeing that, but that’s really where the heavy lifting has been.”
Cycling infrastructure is not part of the project, Bellefontaine said.
“Absolutely nothing we’re doing precludes us from upgrading cycling in the future.”
