Chatham-Kent staff will try to avoid playing a "shell game" when reviewing its Divested Bridges list.
Council has asked staff to re-evaluate and "re-prioritize" the municipality's bridge lifecycle seniority. At last check, there were approximately 29 bridges on the "Divested" list, though a few have since been removed, because they were taken care of using one-time funding.
Despite this, Director of Engineering and Transportation Adam Sullo says the bridge lifecycle process is still underfunded in Chatham-Kent. He says they won't drop or add bridges to the list just for the sake of shuffling things around.
"Even with the bridges we've divested, we're still exceeding our budgeted amount of what's required," says Sullo. "If we were to come back to council, the trouble is we'd probably have to say that more bridges need to be divested. But that's not what council's asking for."
The reprioritizing motion was proposed by Councillor Bryon Fluker at Monday's council meeting. It stemmed from growing frustrations felt by residents who say they've had to change their routes because of worsening bridge conditions.
"Since [2013] a number of those bridges have either load postings or have closed, so I think the public's frustrations are mounting," says Sullo.
Staff will analyze the municipality's list of bridges, along with the divested list, and bring back a report to council. Sullo says there's no timeline for when that will take place.
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