By Pepper Parr
March 19th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
The Glenwood School Drive community, located west of Guelph Line and north of the GO line is back in the news.
Five years ago the residents got some relief for a bridge that some thought was going to fall down – but they had to fight for every yard they gained in the battle with their city council.
Built in the 70’s to allow people from the Glenwood School Drive community to get to shops and community amenities the bridge was declared unsafe in 2012 – fixed at a cost of $380,000.
No longer safe for the public to use, the Drury Lane pedestrian bridge was closed in November of 2011. The estimate at the time to replace the bridge was $2 million to re-build and $380,000 to put on a five year patch.
An inspection of the structure, that was first put up in 1972 and modified and repaired a number of times since then, was found to be unsafe.
Suddenly a community that is basically landlocked, found that it had to take trips that required 55 minutes as opposed to the normal 20 minutes. Parents found they could not get their kids to school on time.
A community that used to have a way out to commercial Fairview and south to the commercial core was suddenly floundering to figure out how they were going to get around and, more significantly, how they were going to deal with a city council that seemed to have forgotten all about them.
Rendering of the proposed new Drury Lane pedestrian bridge
Last week MetroLink announced plans for a new bridge – the old bridge could not handle the electrification of the GO Lakeshore Line West.
Merolinx will be picking up most of the cost – basically because the bridge has to be raised so that electrification can be done on the GO Lakeshore West line.
Related news story:
Patching the bridge in 2012 – council decision making at its worst.
