Protest over Tully’s Bridge closure

A protest was planned for Tully’s Bridge on Friday as citizens speak out against Peterborough County’s plan to close the bridge for six weeks and then reopen it with just a single lane.

“The bridge is falling apart – they’ve known it for years,” said Don Freeman, who lives right next to the bridge on Lily Lake Rd., just west of the Lily Lake Solar Farm.

The bridge is the responsibility of the county, even though it’s located in Selwyn Township.

On Monday the county will close the bridge for six weeks while steel beams and guardrails are installed, all part of its conversion from a two-lane bridge into a single lane.

Mary Smith, the mayor of Selwyn Township and deputy warden of the county, couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday night.

County Warden Joe Taylor said the idea is to decrease the load on the bridge – which is beginning to wear down - so it can last up to 10 more years.

Converting it into a single-lane bridge will cost about $100,000, Taylor said, and it will buy the county time to save up for a replacement (which he said would cost $1.5 million).

“We don’t have the money to replace the bridge right now,” Taylor said.

But that doesn’t help Freeman and his neighbours, who say they planned to protest the move on Friday between 7 and 9 a.m., when the bridge is busy.

Freeman said they also plan to return to protest on the bridge between 3:30 and 5:30 p.m. on Friday, as school buses start taking children home and people are returning from work.

During the six-week bridge closure, Freeman said area residents will have to take routes far out of their way: he will have to travel an extra 9 km to get to downtown Peterborough, for example.

When the bridge is reduced to a single lane, Freeman doubts it will be wide enough to allow agricultural vehicles to pass.

“And they didn’t consult anybody here,” he said.

Taylor said that’s because public consultation is necessary only when council is planning to close a bridge for good – not when they’re trying to save it.

He said a recent engineering report shows the bridge has structural issues, leaving council with few options.

They might’ve done major repairs that would have maintained both lanes, Taylor said – but that would have cost $400,000 and it would only give the bridge a couple of years before it needed replacement.

That wouldn’t have given council enough time to save $1.5 million for a new bridge, Taylor said.

He said he’s not sure exactly how much time it will take council to save money for a new bridge, but he hopes it will be less than a decade.

Meanwhile Freeman said he’s expecting traffic congestion for years to come, thanks to the single-lane bridge, and he wonders what effect it will have on those who already live there.

“What will this do to property values? I’ve no idea,” he said.

Taylor said county council knows the situation is less than ideal.

“It’s controversial, and it’s inconvenient for people in that area – we understand that,” he said.

But the alternative might have been permanent closure of the bridge, he said, and he didn’t want to contemplate it.

“This is a reasonable compromise,” Taylor said. “We don’t want to close the bridge.”