$30 million earmarked for new rural Manitoba bridge

A bridge that has served the Lac Du Bonnet district in southeastern Manitoba for close to 90 years will soon be no more.

The original PR313 bridge was built in 1908. That first wooden bridge was the first to accommodate a Winnipeg Hydro Tramway.

In 1931 the wooden bridge was replaced with a steel Dominion Bridge structure that was used for both rail and highway traffic.

The bridge deck was later raised by four feet in order to accommodate rising water levels created by the McArthur Falls Generating Station. Further modifications and repairs were undertaken over the years including the removal of the rail tracks in 1963.

Due to concerns about the integrity of the bridge, Infrastructure Manitoba commissioned engineering surveys of the bridge in 2015 and solicited suggestions for rehabilitation.

Meetings were held with stakeholders and the general public. The consensus was that a new bridge should be built using the existing piers.

Russ Andrushuk, Acting Executive Director — Structures, Manitoba Infrastructure, reports that demolition work is underway to dismantle portions of the existing bridge.

He notes that the existing bridge will continue to be open to traffic — one lane controlled with signals — throughout most of the year-long construction period.

The initial stages of the work, he points out, involve some post tensioning of the substructure.

“New pier caps have been casted in order to accommodate the widening of the bridge,” he says.
The general bridge construction tender has been awarded to MD Steele Construction Ltd. MD Steele has a good track record for constructing and rehabilitating many bridge structures in Manitoba.

The existing bridge is 6.2m (20 feet) wide, while the new bridge will be 9.6m (31.5 feet) wide. A new sidewalk on the north side will replace the existing sidewalk.

The plan, Andrushuk notes, is to build the new $30 million structure in stages. At some point in late fall or the early part of the new year, the site will be closed to traffic for a period of three weeks.

The bridge is scheduled to be fully open by December 2019. The new bridge is expected to serve the community for 40 years or more.