Ottawa Citizen

BRIDGING THE BARRICADES

Transport Canada, city dickered for months over securing Prince of Wales span.

- JON WILLING jwilling@postmedia.com

A meeting between city officials and Transport Canada over concerns about the Prince of Wales Bridge sped up plans to block off entry points on the historic Ottawa River crossing, according to emails and documents recently released to the Citizen.

A contractor installed chain-link fences at the bridge access points last September after Transport Canada summoned city staff to the federal headquarte­rs at the end of 2015 to discuss security on the outof-service rail bridge.

According to internal city emails released through access to informatio­n, Transport Canada contacted the city on Nov. 23, 2015, with concerns about security on the bridge after being tipped off by reports in the media.

While the emails don’t indicate what issue triggered Transport Canada’s interest, Ottawa police in August that year reported robberies on and around the bridge.

City officials met with the department on Dec. 2, 2015, to explain that it increased patrols and had plans to permanentl­y barricade the bridge.

Two days before Christmas that year, a Transport Canada engineer reminded the city of the municipali­ty’s obligation­s under the federal Railway Safety Act to protect the security of the public and the property.

The city emails and documents were produced between Jan. 1, 2016, and Sept. 23, 2016, the date the Citizen made the request. Email exchanges between staff, politician­s and consultant­s illustrate the drudgery to get the barricades constructe­d.

The city started ramping up plans to build security gates at the bridge access points and working with consultant­s on a design, but after councillor­s Jeff Leiper and Catherine McKenney learned about the plan in April 2016, the design was put on hold.

The project started out as strong security gates but it eventually ended up being fencing.

After confirming the plan with the city’s legal department, the asset management department restarted the barricade project in June 2016.

There was skepticism internally about the project, even though the city needed to satisfy Transport Canada.

In June 2016, one infrastruc­ture staffer predicted in an email that there would be a “media circus,” the fences would be vandalized, and the plan seemed to conflict with the Canada 150 celebratio­ns in 2017.

By the middle of August 2016, the secret was out: the city was working to put barricades on the bridge. The Citizen’s story even caught some higher-ups at OC Transpo off guard, judging by an internal email thread produced after the article was published.

Leiper already had sounded the alarm bells internally in April 2016 about the barricades when staff brought him into the loop. When the Citizen story was published, Leiper followed up with a Sunday afternoon email to city manager Steve Kanellakos complainin­g about the plan and expressing his opposition.

Responded Kanellakos: “Quite frankly, this was not on my radar until it was reported in the media,” and he had transit head John Manconi and then-planning boss John Moser get him more informatio­n. Moser quickly halted the design work.

By then, the city’s intention to block pedestrian access to the bridge was a hot topic, especially for those who for years have enjoyed walking the deck planks or watching the sunset from a perch over the Ottawa River.

In fact, when a Transpo special constable on bike patrol responded to the bridge for trespasser­s on Aug. 17, 2016, he found about 40 people on the deck and many were jumping off the bridge into the water. Some of them told the special constable, who was there to enforce the trespass rules, they had been doing it for years without any consequenc­es.

The city wanted to install robust gates at four separate bridge locations and the cost was approachin­g $450,000, prompting staff to review the requiremen­ts.

In the end, the city only spent about $46,000 on standard chainlink fences at the access points.

On Sept. 20, 2016, during the work installing the fences, a communicat­ions staffer forwarded to his boss a tweet showing an already vandalized fence:

Cycled past #Ottawa Prince of Wales bridge on way home from work, $46k gate busted already ppl on bridge. #ottnews #ottcity

— Patrick McCurdy (@pmmcc) September 20, 2016

During the work, the city was also arranging private security to protect the job site and watch for trespasser­s.

One hiccup was having security watch the Gatineau side of the bridge because although the full bridge is owned by the City of Ottawa, it crosses into Gatineau and there’s different licensing for private security on the other side of the river. The city had to call up a second security company with Quebec credential­s.

In its analysis of barricade options, the city predicted there would be an annual $10,000 cost to repair the chain-link fences.

On Tuesday, the city estimated there have been 35 to 40 inspection­s or repairs on the new fences since they were installed last September. About $15,000 has been spent on repairs.

Cycled past #Ottawa Prince of Wales bridge on way home from work, $46k gate busted already ppl on bridge.

 ?? DARREN BROWN ??
DARREN BROWN

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