Brockton has provided the green light to remove Bridge 11 located in the former Greenock Township just south of Paisley.
A little piece of Greenock's history will be gone forever once the removal of the century old bridge is complete this Fall.
The removal project will begin on September 26th with a completion date set for November 1st.
The bridge which is estimated to have been constructed sometime between 1880 and 1920 is one of the few remaining Warren Truss bridge's left in Ontario that boasts a span of 31 meters.
Originally Brockton Council wrestled with the decision of rehabilitating or replacing the bridge which came with a price tag ranging from 1.2 (rehabilitate) to 3 million dollars (replace).
In the end however, Council deemed the rehabilitation as well as the replacement options cost prohibitive for a bridge that is considered low use.
Fortunately the bridge removal tender came in well under budget, the 184 thousand dollar project has been awarded to Owen King Limited.
(Brockton had budgeted for 400 thousand dollars for the project.)
Severe corrosion in the steel members and aging abutments have taken its toll on the Greenock Bridge.
Bridge maintenance will be an ongoing challenge for Brockton which owns and maintains a total of 38 bridges.
With many more aging bridges in need of repair, Peabody says Brockton has some tough decisions to make in the future.
He estimates it would cost up to 90 million dollars to maintain and fix all of the bridges in Brockton.
