CN to develop a safe solution for James Street Swing Bridge
By Rick Garrick
FORT WILLIAM FIRST NATION—Fort William First Nation Chief Peter Collins is calling for the installation of a permanent, prefabricated bridge deck on the James Street Swing Bridge to reopen the bridge for travel to and from Thunder Bay.
“It’s a 75-year solution and it will take all emergency response vehicles, our buses with our children and all the traffic that goes across there,” says Chief Collins. “It would go right over both cantilevers and have access in both directions.”
Chief Collins says the bridge deck will cost about $5 million. The bridge would be built by Acrow, a full-service design and engineering firm that specializes in prefabricated modular steel bridging solutions for permanent, temporary and emergency use.
“It’s a good concept — we think it will work really well for generations,” Chief Collins says. “It will give us time to look at developing and building maybe a permanent fixture when the life cycle of that [bridge] comes to an end.”
Acrow recently installed a two-lane, 33-metre prefabricated modular steel bridge over the Ganaraska River in Port Hope in 2017 to replace an emergency single-lane bridge.
“Our community is looking for solutions, and that is my job to try to put those solutions on the table,” Chief Collins says. “They want the bridge open, they want the access back into the city so that the seven buses we have going into the city don’t have to travel on [Hwy. 61] with our children. That is one of the things that worries me the most, our children and our Elders travelling on the highway.”
Fort William’s only remaining access road to Thunder Bay connects with Hwy. 61, which has a 90km per hour speed limit, at an uncontrolled intersection.
“We met with the MTO a couple of times trying to lessen that speed limit,” Chief Collins says. “That speed limit continues to be what it is.”
The James Street Swing Bridge was built by Grand Trunk Pacific [now Canadian National Railway (CN)] after an agreement was signed with Fort William, now amalgamated into the City of Thunder Bay, in 1906. It has been closed to vehicle traffic since October 2013, due to a fire.
CN was ordered to reopen the bridge for vehicle traffic and to maintain it in accordance with the 1906 Agreement in a June 11 Court of Appeal decision, but CN appealed the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Thunder Bay Mayor Keith Hobbs says the city will vigorously defend any legal tactics presented by CN.
“We are confident in the decision of the Court of Appeal, which ruled in favour of the City in June of 2018 and ordered CN to reopen its bridge to all traffic including cars and trucks,” Hobbs says. “The Court of Appeal was clear in its ruling, CN is fully responsible for their bridge and it is up to CN to determine what repairs or upgrades are required to reopen it. Thunder Bay and Fort William First Nation have been impacted for far too long. This bridge is an important connection between our communities. We call upon CN to do the right thing and fix their bridge.”
Patrick Waldron, with CN Public Affairs, provided a brief comment in an e-mail reply to a request for comments on the prefabricated bridge proposal.
“We have engaged an independent engineering firm to develop a safe solution and examine the options for the bridge,” Waldron says in the e-mail. “We have told the Fort William First Nation that this review will include an examination of the Bailey bridge proposal.”