Bridge (Photo from West grey Council)
West Grey is getting a snapshot on how it could prioritize replacing and rehabilitating local bridges in the municipality.
Council approved in principle the replacement and rehabilitation recommendations for 10 local bridges as part of the Bridge and Culvert Prioritization Program it received during a meeting on Feb. 11 from Triton Engineering Services Limited.
The program lists 10 local structures vital to the municipal transportation network and prioritizes them to be either rehabilitated or replaced. While some of these have reached the end of their useful life, others have up to eight years left.
The cost to replace the top 10 structures is estimated at over $19.7 million, which Mayor Kevin Eccles says is on the high-end. West Grey has budgeted $2 million in 2025 to replace a bridge in Glenelg and $300,000 to rehabilitate another structure.
“We are not going to get up to that $19.7 million,” says Eccles. “We understand now that with new technology we can put in a culvert probably at 25 per cent of the cost of what is estimated with Triton.”
Eccles says staff will be working on determining what replacements are needed as well as alternate measures to address the aging structures across West Grey, saying the provincial government needs to step up and help provide funding.
“I think it will be a made in West Grey, not a made in Triton Engineering of how we are going to approach this,” says Eccles. “Triton has given us what their professional opinion is of where it is at, but I think that we are going to have the delve down into it harder to be able to come up with what is going to make West Grey whole.”
