2 days ago
Construction underway for repairs to Low Level Bridge
Edmontonians will have to find another route downtown for the next few months as construction officially begins on the Low Level Bridge Monday.
Northbound traffic on the bridge has been completely shut down with traffic being detoured to the James MacDonald Bridge while upgrades happen.
There will be temporary single-lane closures on the southbound Low Level Bridge during off-peak hours while a traffic crossover is built. Two-lane traffic will remain during the afternoon peak traffic hours. It will be fully closed during construction.
'When we look at the traffic patterns and how traffic moves around Edmonton, we found that the southbound movement out of downtown was critical to remain in place,' said Ryan Tiplitsky, supervisor of transportation of the delivery department with the City of Edmonton.
The bridge opened in 1900 and was the very first one to be built in the city.
Tiplitsky says most of the work on the bridge is being done underneath it, including cleaning.
'If you look out there, you're going to see it looks very rusted. We're going to clean that up, the bridge itself has life left, but we make sure it's going to last enough before we actually have to replace it,' he said.
Despite the rehabilitation for the project, the bridge will still need to be replaced within five to seven years.
Tiplitsky says people will still be able to get in and out of downtown, something Cheryl Watson with the Downtown Revitalization Coalition, disagrees with.
'The issue is not necessarily specific to bridge construction or maintenance. We know that this is necessary, the alarm that we have been raising since the beginning of the year is that this is just one more route to our downtown that is blocked,' Watson told CTV News Edmonton.
With the Valleyline LRT construction nowhere near completion, Watson says this is just another blow to commuters.
'You can't have all of these different routes inaccessible all at the same time. So staggering construction projects of main infrastructure traffic routes that are going to impact downtown. We can spread them out.'
The upgrades are expected to last until the end of the year with north and southbound traffic opening come the winter.
With files from CTV News Edmonton's Marek Tkach and Angela Amato
