It is clear to me that the Cameron Street Bridge is a major fiasco of both Council and Administration. I say Administration becauase it is up to them to bring matters in front of Council in a clear and concise manner, well spelled out so that even the weakest of Councillors can understand it sufficiently to make a well informed decision on the matter and even ask further quetions on the matter if it is not quite clear.

It was clear to me at the time of the election, when the approximately $750,000 repair option was out there, and most if not all sitting Councillors knew about it, that those on the election podiums were beating around the bush or did not understand the various options.

The Cameron Street Bridge options were typiclly presented to the public, both by candidates and by the newspapers in extremely dumbed down versions, to the extent that the issue really became incomprehensible and meaningless.

Whether this was on purpose, or whether people who should have known better really did not, I still do not know. I have not made it one of my fact finding projects. The time spent on doing that would be ill spent since there is not a single person I can see on Council who can take the matter forward at this time in a manner which speaks of diligent and businesslike attention to the matter. It would be nice for someone to come forward with a notice of motion, and then present a well-thought out rationalle for the motion brought forward to take action on the bridge issue.

I think the downfall is the grovelling at the money trough to get something bigger built where there should not be something bigger built. The hard fact of the matter is that the bridge is the City's. It is no longer part of the provincial grid, and to make routes on the provincial grid safer than they are now means to look at the grid and make it safer, not by acting on a preconceived notion that a bridge which the province mothballed some decades ago needs to be revived.

All the pulp mills will be mothballed during the livetime of a new rather than repaired bridge. The mills on River Road will do the same. When is still a question, but a 10 year horizon is certainly reasonable from a technology point of view, a wood supply point of view, and an access to mills point of view.

A new bridge of the stature some are talking about will be three years before it is operational. The gap for industrial traffic use narrows. It is a poor investment.

Look at land use with less trackage, with virtually no industry and bringing the people back into the Cottonwood and River Road area for housing and recreation. Talk about a truly Smart City and plan for it. The samll stuff going on in infills is a poor cousin to "Smart Growth".

Talk about infill ..... that's where it needs to go. There is a very large piece of underutilized land sitting right at the river and right next door to downtown. Find ways to move industry out of there with Beetle Dollars and rebuild a super mill or two outside the bowl in new heavy industry areas with services provided by tax dollars. Build a waterfront development with a variety of power options - geothermal, solar, sensitively done biomass. Make it a showpiece of planning a northern city. Talk about real winter city opportunities.

Any Councillors who read this and have not been thinking in this fashion, it is time you do and make it your objective to work towards this ad have something concrrete to show for it by the next election, if not sooner. It is time to dream, filter them out for a reality check, and get on with the business of making this a community people will want to come to to enjoy life.

Council is there to set direction not micromanage. Time to get the Cameron Street off your desks and get on with other matters. It's been there for too many years!

Frankly the number of structural engineers who are posting their opinions on this board is mind boggling. Thankfully, good asset management programs ignore the statements like those posted on this board.

I had suggested this steel deck option here a long ways back.
I had also suggested the bridge be repaired and have a weight/vehicle size limit put on it.
That way it eases some traffic flow and will protect the bridge as maybe a heritage site?
I somehow don't think this is going to happen as it all seems to be about the commercial vehicles.

Owl: "I think the downfall is the grovelling at the money trough to get something bigger built where there should not be something bigger built."

That is the way good asset management programs work.

Structural engineers have to live with their mistakes - doctors just bury them.

"To get something bigger built where there should not be something bigger built" is actually not a structural engineer's fault.

Luckily, engineering is a very focused, blindered profession.

The structural engineer simply gets told what to build and she makes sure it is structurally sound, economical, and possibly even relatively nice to look at.

The urban planner suggests what land uses will be where and City Council may tweak that as they create the OCP.

The traffic engineer will determine waht traffic will be generated by the various land uses and will determine road locations as well as sizes, including any bridges which may be required.

So, who is responsible for mistaken location and sizes of bridges when traffic takes a different route through the road network?

Council, city planners, and traffic engineers.

Thus, with repsect to the fiasco of the Cameron street bridge, I lay the blame for the inability to come to a conclusion and getting on with it on Council, City Planners, and City Traffic Engineering.

Structural engineers are not the problem.

Owl:"...with respect to the fiasco of the Cameron street bridge, I lay the blame for the inability to come to a conclusion and getting on with it on Council, City Planners, and City Traffic Engineering."

That is the only reasonable conclusion. Having had to backtrack and reverse some recent high publicity decisions the present City Council and
leader(s) may have been paralyzed into in-action by the fear of committing another blunder in respect to the "CS" bridge. No action - no blame!

Since the general public doesn't seem to give a darn one way or the other the ultimate prize to be paid at election time may be minimal or none.

Perhaps they can hire the illusionist David Copperfield and he will make that rusty old bridge disappear for awhile, or forever.

Wouldn't that be nice?

Good Asset Management? Who spoke of good asset management. That is the problem. Asset Management is a bean counter programme.

We are talking aout a city with facilities. We are talking about facilities management. Managing the assets the facilities represent is only a portion of the many objectives of managing the facilites.

The most important part of managing facilities is to manage them most effectively and efficiently for the purpose they have been assembled. One of the key objectives one must ensure is maintained is public safety. Waterton Water, bridge collapses in Montreal, structural capacity of foothills bridge, redirecting of trucking traffic via cameron and fifth avenue, poor dangerous goods route, train car derailements, snow ploughing three days after a significant snow fall, major potholes left unrepaired for longer than 2 days, etc. etc. Each one involves a facility that must be provided by a modern city government. Each one has a publci safety risk involved with it. Each one should have an objective of resolving a facility dysfunction based on public safety. If it does not, the City is not carrying out due diligence.

Facility asset managing bean counters are a low totem pole part of the decision making process. Managing City facilities is a much higher level of importance than asset managing. Bean counters on the public liability or risk managing part of the equation are much more important.

Here is another idea. Get Christo to wrap the bridge and make an artistic statement for a city in the north. That will attract the cameras from Vancouver for a while at least.

;-)

http://flickr.com/photos/jakecompton/77684215

There was a rumour going around prior to the last Municipal Election that the present Cameron St. Bridge would be replaced by a One Way Steel Superstructure, at a cost of approx 4/5 Million. Apparently a local company could build the bridge for that amount.

Lets suppose that the intent all along is to use Bens option 3. That is a One Way Steel Superstructure. What have we got to date.

(1) We will not be building any bridge across the Nechako from Victoria Street. This has always been a pipedream;

(2) It is highly unlikely that we will get any money from the Fed and Provincial Governments for a new bridge at the present location at a cost of 22 Million. One reason is because the Provincial Government gave the Cameron St. Bridge to the City with the proviso that if they wanted it they would have to maintain it. Any money in the Provincial Government Budget will be spent on the Simon Fraser Bridge, 97 South and 16 West.

(3) This leaves option 3 which would be a steel superstructure One Way, or:

(4) Repair the present bridge for $750,000.00 and get it back in service.

NOW if the City were to get money for option 1 or 2 from the Feds and Province the Citys portion would be approx 7/8 Million, and this is the amount that is being budgeted for in 2008/09.
If they dont get the money from Feds/Prov then they have already budgeted for 7/8 Million and they will then say to us:::::

We couldnt get the money from the Feds/Provincial but we are not going to let this stop us from going forward, and we will therefore build a new bridge across the Nechako. This will be a Steel Superstructure One Way bridge that will fill the needs of vehicle and commercial traffic. This bridge will cost us approx 4/5 Million and we have already budgeted for it. This option fills the Mayors promise of building a bridge.

I suspect that this has been the plan all along, and therefore that is why they do not want to repair the old bridge, even though this is the most sane way to go. Time will tell.

Another possibility albeit somewhat remote is that if my memory serves me right when the Cameron St., Overpass was built approx 15 years ago, I seem to remember that their was an error made and that this overpass does not comply with the CN Rail height restrictions for overpasses.(To Low) If my memory serves me right (And it may not) I believe that the City was allowed to leave the structure as it was, unless some situation arose, at which time they would be liable to have the situation rectified. Is it possible that with the upcoming Port of Prince Rupert Container traffic with containers being double stacked on trains that there might be a problem with this overpass, and that the City will have to make some adjustments, if so this would be very costly, however if it could be done under the guise of building a new bridge, then of course it would not be a problem.

In any event it seems that there is some reason for the City to insist on building a new bridge rather than repairing the present one. 3 years of diverted traffic, extra gas burning, extra costs to industry for freight charges, and lost business to Companies on first Avenue does not seem to be enough of an incentive to get this bridge fixed.

Talk is cheap. But can you guys keep it up until the next election? I doubt it.

I cant speak for anyone else, but you can rest assured that I can keep it up for the next election, and beyond that if thats what it takes.

The question is Harbinger can you???

Me? I will see what I can do. As you are probably aware of, is that all the candidates in our next election are only gonna yak about downtown revitilization and tourism, prostitution, escort agencies, and all that related crap. Nuthin'will change. If you remember to bring the bridge up in chat, I will second yer motion. Maybe pothole filling, a public campground like other towns have and maybe a real city council that does things instead of rubber stamping our mayors bidding. And best of all, maybe a new mayor.I hope he doesn't get a patronage appointment as I would be very sad to get rid of him by that only premise. Know what I'm sayin' dude?