Coquitlam commuter road remains closed after mishap

Transportation offi cials expect Como Lake Avenue to reopen before Monday’s rush hour

A major commuter road in Coquitlam remains closed after a 300- tonne beam became dislodged early Friday on the new Evergreen SkyTrain Line.

Como Lake Avenue — which runs under the rapid transit line at Clarke Avenue — won’t reopen until engineers confirm it is safe to do so. Officials with the Ministry of Transportation expect that to happen before rush hour on Monday morning.

In the meantime, drivers will be forced to take detours. Flaggers will remain, with additional signs added to the area to help drivers.

The ministry had predicted the problem would be fixed and the road reopened by noon on Friday. But Amanda Farrell, project director for the Evergreen Line, said engineers decided to keep the road shut until they had stabilized and repaired the beam.

“The structural engineers are still investigating so we won’t reopen the road until we’re sure that it’s 100- percent safe,” she said.

Although Farrell didn’t know what the repairs would cost, she said any expenses will be paid for by the contractor EGRT Construction.

The beam dislodged when a spacer — which acts as support — failed, Farrell said.

“This particular beam is slightly different and slightly more curved than the normal beams because it’s going to come up and swoop over the intersection and down toward Coquitlam,” she said.

Usually, engineers use a temporary metal spacer, but because the beam had a larger than normal space between the beam and the column they had to use a concrete spacer.

She could not say why the spacer failed.

“That’s what the engineers are out there doing now. They are looking at why it failed, how they are going to fix it and whether the road can reopen,” she said.

When asked whether the 300- tonne beam could have fallen on the road, potentially crushing a vehicle, Farrell said there were no public safety concerns.

“I’ve been talking to the engineers here. The beam is on four points of contact and what they are telling me is that it is very stable where it is now and that’s not a concern,” she said. “I don’t want to speculate while they are out there investigating until I have all the facts.”

She said engineers have been following the standard methodology for building the SkyTrain and, to her knowledge, nothing like this has ever happened during construction of a SkyTrain line.

“We will have to look at what has happened here and why that temporary spacer failed.”

Farrell said investigators will look into whether a similar situation could happen anywhere else on the line.

Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart — who received a phone call at home Friday morning from a resident who’d heard a loud crack when the beam shifted — said he expects residents will be concerned, but he doesn’t believe they should worry. He noted the project has been running smoothly so far.

“This is a big project and you get glitches,” he said. “I’m more comfortable now having seen it first hand but also because I understand better what happened ... As soon as the road opens I’ll drive under it.”

Stewart said he hoped the road closure would be short and wouldn’t cause too many problems for commuters.

“I’m happy no one was injured, but we have to make sure the residents of this region aren’t impacted by this,” he said.

The $ 1.4- billion rapid transit line is slated to open in 2016 and will connect Burnaby and Coquitlam. Tunnelling is expected to begin within days. Once complete, the Evergreen Line will connect the Tri- Cities to the rest of the SkyTrain system, creating the longest rapid transit network in Canada at 79 kilometres.

Farrell said the beams and columns on the Evergreen Line remain sound and the incident won’t delay the timeline for the overall project.