More time, money for pedestrian bridge

Airport Parkway project will total more than $10M

Another year and $4.65M, but it beats the alternative, writes Joanne Chianello,

‘To call this a disappointing disgrace is really an understatement. It’s a monumental failure.”

And with that stark assessment, Coun. Maria McRae succinctly summed up the feelings of politicians, city staff and — most importantly — residents who have waited years for the twice-delayed completion of the Airport Parkway pedestrian bridge.

On Tuesday, council’s finance and economic development committee approved spending another $4.65 million to complete the botched footbridge and the connecting cycling and pedestrian paths, bringing the total cost of the project to more than $10 million.

Councillors also directed city clerk and solicitor Rick O’Connor “to pursue legal action” to recover costs lost due to a poor design for the bridge. O’Connor warned that there are, of course, no guarantees that the city can recoup its expenses through legal channels.

It was originally scheduled to be completed in four months back in the fall of 2011. We’re now looking at late 2014 at the earliest for a bridge to safely get people across the parkway.

Is there never to be any good news out of this project?

Well here’s something: We can thank heaven it wasn’t actually built.

Two different engineering companies have now raised serious concern about the viability of the original design by engineering company Genivar.

Back in the summer, Vancouver-based firm Buckland and Taylor was hired by the city to review the design after hearing alarm bells from a number of people involved in the project.

The company found, among other things, that the steel pipes that were meant to help hold up the bridge were vulnerable to breakage and the welds that held those pipes in place would fail before they should. Those conclusions led to the city’s firing Genivar. The city then hired engineering giant Delcan to re-design the bridge and report back on what would be needed to build this thing. (Louis W. Bray Construction remains the contractor on the project.)

Delcan’s report, made public Tuesday, included this alarming observation: The steel pipes from Genivar’s original design were “fatigue-prone” and “the failure of one of them would almost certainly result in the collapse of the bridge.”

And apparently the parts of the bridge that are constructed aren’t doing well, either. According to Delcan, “The cracks observed around the column capitals on the bridge deck surfaces are structural.” Hence, the entire concrete deck will be replaced with less weighty steel. One potentially positive outcome is that this unmitigated mess has prompted an unprecedented independent review of the entire process to see where the city went wrong and how such a disastrous outcome can be avoided in the future.

Among the key questions we’ll want answered is whether city staff failed in its responsibilities to properly oversee the project. How on earth, for example, was the original four-month timeline approved?

Today, you can’t find anyone who ever thought that schedule was remotely realistic. And how was it that the wrong concrete was used back in 2011, the cause of the first one-year delay on the project?

The same Genivar engineers who signed off on the Airport Parkway bridge design also approved the Hazeldean bridge, which was delayed by a month after structural issues caused it to sink slightly. Did anyone make that connection? If not, why not? Did someone ignore early warning signs that the project was headed for trouble?

A frustrated Mayor Jim Watson said not only is he demanding answers, but vowed to take real action once the “unvarnished” report is filed to him, likely early in the new year.

“There’s no question that if people are at fault, particularly if there’s a history of problems with a couple individuals overseeing projects ... then yes, we have to take corrective action on that,” Watson told reporters.

But while there’s “plenty of blame to go around,” as Watson said, there are also a few myths in this story that need dispelling.

One is the idea that the city needs to pre-qualify bidders on projects. The fact is, the city already does that with large, complicated undertakings. It may be that the city will want to expand that policy. But back when Genivar bid on the bridge design, it did have to go through a prequalification. In fact, only Genivar and Delcan got through to the bidding stage. So “pre-qualification” won’t catch every potential problem, although improving city oversight might catch issues earlier.

The other fiction that must be banished is that it’s somehow the fancy design of the pedestrian bridge, with its central tower and distinctive “O,” that’s to blame for this unacceptable delay.

Even Watson seems to have fallen prey to this erroneous thinking.

“I want a basic bridge” for future projects like the upcoming Somerset-Donald bridge, the mayor told reporters. “I don’t want all the bells and whistles, towers and stylized O’s.

“Let’s get something basic because we’re in times of restraint.”

This is wrong-headed on a number of levels.

First of all, a stay-cable bridge is a very common design, used successfully hundreds if not thousands of times since the end of the Second World War. The issue with Genivar’s design was the decision to use solid steel pipes as the stays, which is highly unusual. It had nothing to do with the perceived flashiness of the design itself.

Delcan’s re-design calls for more conventional steel cables instead of inflexible steel stays, which should result in a more dependable, but similar-looking bridge.

Interesting design doesn’t have to cost more than boring design. (Indeed, Genivar’s design bid came in around $550,000, while Delcan’s was about $750,000.) We must remember that infrastructure is permanent, and how our city looks is important to us and to visitors.

After all, as Watson himself said Thursday, the Airport Parkway is “a very high-profile route coming into the city.”

There’s no question that this entire venture has been a fiasco. And it’s inexcusable if taxpayers end up out-ofpocket because of the botched project. But if we allow this one stumble — and yes, it’s a major one — to convince us that somehow we need to take the most mundane approach to building this city, then it will be more than this bridge project that will be a monumental failure.