Crews are back in Kaslo this week putting the finishing touches on the new Highway 31 bridge.
“They ran out of time to do last fall,” says Mayor Suzan Hewat. “Once the snow hit they had to quit working. They couldn’t pave the bridge when it was snowing.”
Additionally, she says some more in-ground infrastructure needs to be tied in to the village system and improvements to the bridge approach need to be made. Hewat says the configuration of roads was changed for safety reasons.
The steel and concrete bridge replaces a wooden bridge in the same spot that was built in 1966 and had a centre support in the middle of the Kaslo River.
“It definitely needed improvement,” Hewat says. “Council had gone for a couple of years to UBCM meetings and advocated for the replacement of the bridge because we feared if there was a major incident at freshet and one of the log jams released upstream it could have affected the bridge.”
Hewat says the Ministry of Transportation listened and added the bridge to its replacement list. Construction began last year. The new bridge is wider than the old one, with room for bicycles on both sides and a pedestrian walkway on one side.
The contract was awarded to BD Hall Constructors for $6.19 million.
DriveBC indicates the current round of work is expected to last until May 6 and speed will be reduced to 30 km/h, but no delays are expected.