Province reluctant to admit rickety N.B. bridge was slated for demolition, documents show

CBC

3 days ago

When the William Mitton Covered Bridge in Riverview was torn down last winter, many were heartbroken.
But its demolition was not surprising.
Closed to traffic since 1981, the bridge developed a dramatic sag in the middle, its abutments looked ready to pop, and several beams hung lazily from the roof they once held up.
Documents obtained by CBC News after a right to information request reveal the New Brunswick government's reluctance to publicly admit the bridge was slated for demolition, despite having made plans a year and a half earlier to get rid of it.
The documents also show an official with the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure called for a provincial strategy to handle aging covered bridges in a less reactive way.
"We are at a point in time when a discussion has to be made to invest in the covered bridge or dismantle," Glen MacDonald, the assistant director of bridge maintenance, wrote in June 2023. "There is no funding allotted for this bridge at this time."
But when CBC reported on the bridge's rough condition the next month, a department spokesperson would only say the future of the bridge was "yet to be determined."
Just days after the CBC story, a department superintendent, Jean-Marc Arseneault, wrote in an email that he concluded the bridge was beyond repair.
"The structure should be removed before someone gets hurt," Arsenault said.
That same day, Corey White of the planning and project development division wrote: "I know I am speaking to the choir here, but we really need direction from [the province] on these bridges as we will see lots more of these last-minute issues — and we can manage these in an orderly fashion if we were to get the strategy approved."
By August, DTI was drafting diagrams of how to remove the bridge.
WATCH | 'The structure should be removed before someone gets hurt.'
Bridge's demise was obvious, but province was slow to admit demolition plan
40 minutes ago
Duration 4:09
The William Mitton Covered Bridge in Riverview was demolished in February 2025, but documents CBC News obtained show the province had decided its fate long before.
That November, the department received an inspection report from a hired consultant in Fredericton.
"The structure should be demolished and removed as soon as possible," said the report from Hilcon Ltd., adding that it was too dangerous to have workers near it.
"In our opinion, a complete structural collapse is imminent and controlled demolition is preferable to allowing the structure to collapse into the watercourse below."
Most of the emails CBC received were written when Blaine Higgs and the Progressive Conservatives were in power.
Despite the dire warnings from provincial officials and experts, the bridge remained for over a year until its removal in February 2025.
Throughout 2024, emails show, the spokesperson for the department was withholding telling the media about the bridge's fate.
"[CTV News is] looking for a definitive answer on DTI's plans for saving this bridge, but I know we've refrained from speaking to this point in both of our previous responses," spokesperson Jacob MacDonald wrote in August 2024.
In October, staff from the Town of Riverview public works department also began send photos of the bridge to department officials.
"Conditions are getting worse," a Riverview official wrote.
By that November, the provincial officials were also getting impatient, with one writing, "We need to strike while the iron is hot … each day that passes makes it harder to remove safely."
They were also drafting "communication plans" for two scenarios: either the bridge would be removed or it would collapse.
Ray Boucher of the New Brunswick Covered Bridge Association said in an interview that his group has tried hard to save the bridge but that it ultimately came down to a lack of funds.
He said the department was "more than fair" giving his group time to try to raise money for the bridge, and that's why the removal was so delayed.
"They virtually gave me two years before they finally decided that it had to come down," Boucher said. "So under the Higgs government, I've got nothing but praise."
Chuck Chiasson, who has been transportation minister since the Liberals were elected last fall, there was a "loose strategy" on managing covered bridges when he took over.
"But I want something more comprehensive that's going to be more forward-looking that we can say which ones are going to be at risk, which ones do we need to start mitigating now , nd how are we going to do that?" Chiasson said, but didn't give an exact timeline.
Boucher said that he believes the department looks at the covered bridges on a case-by-case basis, and if there is a strategy, "I've never seen it."
Officials do the best they can with their budget, but "a covered bridge is not an asset, it's a liability," he said. "That's the way the province looks at it."
"DTI, their mandate is to get you from one side of a river to the other side of the river," Boucher said.
He added that it might make more sense to have the Tourism Department take over some of the covered bridges not actively carrying traffic.
When asked about this, Chiasson said it could be discussed in the future. He also confirmed that another aging covered bridge near Fundy National Park had recently been torn down as well.
In 1953, New Brunswick had 340 bridges, according to the covered bridge group. Today there are 57.
How Vermont protects its covered bridges
Not far away is New Brunswick's American cousin in terms of covered bridge fame.
Vermont, with more than 100 covered bridges, adopted an official strategy to preserve them in 2003. The strategy outlines how bridges are prioritized as well as how they are to be maintained while keeping their historic character.
"It's a very good document," said JB McCarthy, a covered bridge expert with the Vermont Agency of Transportation. "We've been using it for years." There's also a state covered bridge committee that monitors the bridges and highlights those in need of repair, he said.
McCarthy said he's not aware of any case of a covered bridge in Vermont being taken down because of disrepair.
When shown a photo of the Mitton bridge in its final years, he said he's never seen a covered bridge in Vermont get "quite that bad." The bridges are important for tourism, he added.
"I think the state as a whole has an eye on these things and does the best we can to try to maintain them and squeeze them in for projects when we can."
Watching the Wheaton Covered Bridge
While the Mitton bridge is relegated to a memory, another covered bridge in southeast New Brunswick, the Wheaton Covered Bridge, still stands just outside Sackville. Standing high in contrast with the flat, windswept Tantramar Marsh, the bridge is beloved by locals.
Mainly used by farmers to access their fields, the bridge was abruptly shut down last summer after a worrying inspection.
Chiasson announced changes would be made to divert traffic around the Wheaton Covered Bridge, over a modular bridge, to preserve the older bridge's history while addressing farmers' need to use the road.
Local Green Party MLA Megan Mitton has been advocating a fix for the Wheaton Covered Bridge and praised the proposal for both goals of preserving history and allowing farmers access.
"In terms of just our local culture, people go get their prom photos and their wedding photos taken there," she said.
"So there does need to be a strategy that's less reactive and actually plans out what's going to need to be done to deal with our bridges."