Dain City residents pressing for new bridge
There wasn’t a parking space to be found within a block of the Carrie Lynn Pinard Centre in Dain City on Tuesday night.
There wasn’t much space in the facility’s gymnasium either as about 200 residents packed in for a meeting aimed at mobilizing efforts to lobby city and upper-tier politicians into action on the now closed Forks Road Bridge.
The city closed the nearly-90year-old span to vehicular traffic on Nov. 2, citing structural concerns that could leave the bridge unable to support itself in as little as 12 months.
Since then residents and businesses on the peninsula community in the city’s south end have become increasingly vocal over concerns with closing one of two access routes to the community.
“Everybody has concerns,” said Dawn Cant Elliott, who along with a small group of residents has been working with Ward 6 Couns. Jim Larouche and Bonnie Fokkens to address the issue.
That group organized the Tuesday meeting as an opportunity to share the information they have gathered and to seek members for a formal citizens committee to work with the city to prioritize replacement of the bridge.
At the same time the group has been circulating a petition calling for replacement of the bridge as a priority in the 2019 budget.
That petition has garnered more than 1,000 signatures and will be introduced, along with a similar motion, during the inaugural meeting of Welland city council on Dec. 4.
“The writing was on the wall,” said Cant Elliott, who pointed out the city placed weight restrictions on the bridge in 2016.
Since then, residents have seen trucks beyond the restriction passing over, and have witnessed the same deterioration of the bridge that has repeatedly been pointed out by city engineers in budget deliberations. The current call to action, she said, should have come a long time ago.
“We should have been fighting it then, we’re behind the 8-ball and we need to get our act together,” said Cant Elliot, noting the closure doesn’t affect just Dain City residents as the thoroughfare is used by more than 2,500 vehicles daily travelling between Port Colborne, Welland and beyond.
Cant Elliot said the committee will focus on moving forward on replacement of the bridge, not on the reasons for the closure and the lack of pre-emptive action on the aging structure downloaded to the city from Niagara Region in 2000.
Mike Barlow and Anita Lennon-Barlow were both on hand for the meeting, adding their names to the list of residents hoping to sit on the committee.
They both cited concerns over the loss of customers for the few businesses in the area, the impact on future rowing seasons on Welland International Flatwater Centre south course that passes under the bridge, and safety concerns with a single access to the area.
“There’s a potential to be trapped here,” said Barlow.
“It goes from concerns with property values, safety becomes a concern,” said Dain City resident Barbara Mainville,.
She added that on a lesser scale the single access is not well maintained and the route around the closed bridge has its own impact on convenience, especially for residents who work and go to school in Port Colborne.
Cant Elliot said on a positive front the small group met with city officials on Monday and received some information related to mounting safety concerns.
Fire officials have developed a plan to use the Trillium Rail line bridge to the north of Forks Road and the Seaway Service Road on the east side of the peninsula to access the community in the event of an emergency.
“There is an existing plan in place,” she said, voicing her hopes to have a mock emergency exercise to fully vet the plan.
The city has scheduled a public information forum at Welland Civic Square for Dec. 11, 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., ahead of a general committee meeting that night when staff will present a report on the closure of the bridge.