Pedestrian bridge may not open until winter
There will likely be snow on the ground before residents can once again cross the North Saskatchewan River from Cloverdale on the long-delayed Valley Line Southeast LRT pedestrian bridge.
The pedestrian crossing under the new $391-million Tawatinâ Bridge was supposed to be complete by May 2019, but that deadline went off track when a car-sized concrete slab was found in the river during bridge construction.
In an update, Transed communications manager Dallas Lindskoog said the river crossing should open in line with LRT service, and maybe even a bit before.
There isn't a set timeline for opening the 13-km line, but Lindskoog said the team is working toward having it ready by the end of the year, about a year after the initial opening plan of December 2020.
Work on the pedestrian crossing is going well, with the LRT bridge already complete, but Lindskoog said it won't open until all the surrounding trail and landscaping work is complete. The crews will need as many nice days as possible to get the job done before winter hits.
“It may happen before service commencement, but if it does it will be in snowy conditions and that's because we need every nice day that we've got to finish the landscaping and the restoration of those parks on both sides all summer long,” Lindskoog said.
“Once the trails are built, we have to do significant landscaping planning, and we have to keep it closed until all the work is done.”
Ward 8 Coun. Ben Henderson said his constituents have been waiting a long time for the bridge and the line and are excited to see it nearing completion. The previous Cloverdale footbridge was closed in December 2016 to allow for construction to begin.
“It would have been lovely to have it open by now, but I think the most important thing is getting it open, period, and hopefully this will be the last summer without it,” Henderson said. “I think people are getting impatient, but we're getting close, and hopefully once it's open, it's open. And it will be a nice bridge and it will give people back the connection that I think has always been a really important pedestrian connection.”
As for the rest of the project, Lindskoog said testing and commissioning is ramping up to prepare for line-wide testing toward the end of the year. Two trains arrived in the Strathearn neighbourhood last week for a two-week testing period along Connors Road, the steepest grade in the line, to ensure a train car can be recovered in the unlikely event it were to lose power and had to be pulled up the hill.
Responding to the line delays, the city's valley line technical manager Chris Gentile said the project agreement outlines financial consequences for Transed, but the payment amounts for these delays are “commercially sensitive” and not being released publicly.
The $1.8-billion line will run from downtown to Mill Woods and eventually connect to the west leg of the Valley Line, which is just getting underway to Lewis Farms.