The Drury Lane bridge repair went forward another step when city council agreed to a single source tender to have drawings done up as well as some engineering work done by AMEC, the company that has done all the work on the bridge since it was suddenly closed down last November.
Council at a previous meeting agreed to proceed with the repairs to the bridge at a cost of $380,000 but couldn’t proceed to making the repairs until there were drawings and specifications put together. Due to the urgency of this work, city staff recommended a single source contract and recommended AMEC. They are to get back with the drawings and scope of the work required and then the job goes out to tender.
The hope is to have the bridge repaired and opened in July. That repair is expected to hold for at least five years during which time residents can travel back and forth from the community on to Drury Lane and on south to Fairview which then lets them travel to Burlington Mall and on into Central Park, the YMCA and the Library.
Council in committee debated long and hard about what it was going to cost to replace the bridge after the five year point. A cost of $2.5 million was not on for Councillor Dennison; other members of council were having serious digestion problems over the cost. One wonders how they felt when city engineer Tom Eichenbaum let them know that the plans to build a tunnel instead of a replacement bridge would come in at as much as $3 million.
But that wasn’t the issue last night. The bridge is going to be repaired and in a month or so the community will know more about the kind of repair that will be done and more on how long it is likely to last.