‘It needs to come down’: Winnipeg to replace Arlington Bridge

Winnipeg’s iconic Arlington Bridge will request to beryllium wholly replaced, a caller engineering study says — not conscionable repaired, arsenic metropolis officials had hoped.

The study earlier metropolis hallway shows that extending nan 112-year-old bridge’s lifespan pinch reinforcements isn’t possible.

The span has been closed indefinitely since past November.

A projected caller creation — pinch a value tag of astatine slightest $166.3 cardinal and a six-year timeline — would region nan overpass’s signature slope to make it easier not only for drivers, but for pedestrians and cyclists arsenic well.

That number, metropolis officials say, includes nan $17 cardinal costs of taking down nan existing bridge.

City nationalist useful chair Janice Lukes said Monday that nan caller creation mightiness not beryllium nan champion span money tin buy, but it’ll decidedly beryllium amended than what’s location now.

“We tin put transit buses complete (the caller design) now and we tin put tracks complete it, truthful I deliberation that’s an added use — on pinch nan progressive proscription and without nan steep incline,” Lukes said.

“I deliberation 1 of nan champion things is it’s not going to beryllium annihilating nan neighbourhood to nan north.”

Lukes said nan caller scheme is an betterment complete a three-lane 2019 proposal, and that nan metropolis can’t spend to support nan span closed forever.

“The congestion and nan buildup of traffic, it’s very delayed, very congested.

“I deliberation wherever nan city’s astatine now, successful our financial realm, this is what we tin afford, and we’re going to do it.”

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City engineering head Brad Neirinck said there’s nary prime astatine this point.

“It’s deteriorated from corrosion arsenic good arsenic different issues, including seized bearings, and we had to undertake attraction work,” he told 680 CJOB’s The News.

“When we looked astatine whether we could fortify nan span and rehabilitate it, moreover trying to assistance nan span up to benignant of put a scaffolding underneath it … it couldn’t return those kinds of loads, truthful it needs to travel down.”

Neirinck acknowledged that nan replacement span solves nan contiguous problem, but not needfully nan city’s needs successful nan future.

“Something successful nan early is besides needed successful summation to Arlington Bridge,” he said.

“There’s much maturation happening successful nan North End of nan metropolis arsenic good arsenic successful nan RMs that are extracurricular nan city, truthful there’s going to beryllium much requirements for north-south capacity successful nan future.”