A third-party engineering review revealed that a detour may not be required while the Walkerton rehabilitation is underway.
Bruce County council received an update from Triton Engineering Services on Thursday and heard that the existing bridge is generally structurally sound and half-joint rehabilitation could be completed while maintaining one lane of traffic over the bridge.
Adam Stanley, Director of Transportation and Environmental Services says rehabilitation was initially ruled out, but it's being considered again.
"The initial investigation looked at the age of the bridge, and in general terms, when you look at a structure that's 85 years old, in a lot of cases, you're not expecting to get concrete strengths of 76 MPa (megapascals)," he said. "One of the reasons this is back on the table, is because that bridge condition and assessment was kind of done tertiary to the third-party review and having such a solid structure, I think it's very imperative that we look at cost-effective measures and a rehabilitation would be one of those measures."
Heavy truck traffic would need to be restricted during the work, and alternate truck routes have been proposed. However, emergency service vehicles would still be able to traverse the bridge during the work.
The potential solution could ease community concerns, after residents and businesses petitioned council to install a temporary bridge rather than implement a lengthy detour during the work.
Rehabilitation alternatives will be added to the on-going Environmental Assessment following the completion of the third-party review.
Triton has indicated the third-party review will be complete sometime in early March.
