"those repairs were said to be under $1 million dollars."

It has been so long that it is beginning to feel like those were 1983 dollars. Of course, so where the other options.

I think we need to spend a year or so to get some updated prices.

;-)

I think we should spend three more years getting updated prices, and two or three more reports.

It is imparative that we fly to Paris, China, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Denmark and other important countries to study their bridges and see what kind of parties they like to throw.

We must ensure we look at the big picturea and get full value from our tax dollars.

;-)

Another study may be in the wings...

It would not surprise me a bit if council sashays around the issue again....

I personally doubt we will ever see Cameron Street bridge open and operational again....nor will we have a substitute for it, at least not as long as those who are running the city and those who appear to be bowing down to those who do are, remain where they are.....

VOTE TIME!

Well, this shouldn't affect me... I didn't use the old bridge and I'm sure I wont use the new bridge... so I shouldn't have to pay any taxes towards it... should I ??

Maybe a "bridge improvement fee" for those who need to use that bridge ?

We should be able to get a grant to study that.
BTW "grants" are just free gobs of money aren't they, that comes out of that big barrel of spare cash... somewhere ?

HEY RRrabbit --- MAYBEE WE SHOULD HAVE AN IMPROVEMENT FEE IMPOSED ON THE ROAD TO YOUR HOUSE.I WON'T EVER USE IT SO I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO PAY TAXES TOWARD IT...SHOULD I ??

giterdun... absolutely you shouldn't, just deduct whatever you think is fair from your tax bill this year... tell them I said it was okay ! :-)

Ben, have you ever been able to fathom why the option of repairing the bridge for "less than one million dollars" is completely off the table as far as the "decider" is concerned?

There were plenty of letters to the newspapers suggesting this option since practically day one (after the City traffic manager came up with this solution) yet it is impossible to get the head honcho to even respond to it or explain why option 4 seems to be beneath intelligent consideration for him.

I mean, how exasperating can it be if such a simple matter is going to be massaged and studied yet again - and for who knows many more years?

Pretty soon the City will qualify for the "Municipal Fuzzification Award of the Year" honor.

Yikes!!!

The cost of the Repair to the Cameron Street brige which included re-surfacing according to the Citys Transportation Manager was $750,000.00 I think that this figure was probably inflated to try and make a case for not repairing it. In any event I doubt if it would cost much more that that.

Its not as if this bridge is required to handle a lot of traffic, it is merely used by some industry on River Road, 1st Avenue, and the North East Downtown, so repairing it and taking the pressure off 5th and the Bypass would be a smart, intelligent, efficient, cost effective, way to solve this problem, and that is why it will not happen.

Council wants a new bridge, at $24 Million, or $9 Million, or $4 Million, but no repaired bridge for $1Million. Remember that all the hype etc; for a new bridge came from City Hall. I am not aware of any Citizens pressing the City for a new bridge, and in fact I am sure that they would be quite happy to have it repaired, and get back to business.

A rumour before the last election was that this Bridge would be replaced by a single lane, steel superstructure, on the existing piers for a cost of approx $4Million and would be built by a local contractor. It will be interesting to see if this actually happens.

I think it is time to think outside the box and build a bridge which would allow residences to be built on it to subsidize the cost of the bridge ...

http://flickr.com/photos/kmu/140361009

Pal:"I am not aware of any Citizens pressing the City for a new bridge, and in fact I am sure that they would be quite happy to have it repaired, and get back to business."

Precisely. It's simple, reasonable, affordable...please don't tell the Mayor and Council - they are not interested.

I have told the Mayor and Council on more than one occasion, and your right-they are not interested. But other than to say that the bridge is old and will need further repairs a few years down the road, they have no other reason for not repairing it.

Its pretty obvious that they want a new bridge to be built with all the attendent contracts etc; If they build it on their own it will only cost us approx $4 Million so why would they be concerned.

It will be interesting to see who gets the contract to build the new one.

Ive pretty much given up on this one, and will now bide my time until the next election. Hopefully Mr. Kinsley will run again so that I and some of my friends can vote against him.

**Hell hath no fury as a voter scorned** or something like that.

Sure were a lot of trucks spun out on the Cameron street hill last night coming off of 1st Avenue. It was like driving through a parking lot.

That is Carney Hill, Chadermando, there is no Cameron Street. It only existed on a map and ran behind Alward Burden on the bank on the South side of Carney Street. Cameron Street was dreamed up by industry in the 80's so they could have a new bridge.

We don't need it, it just prolongs industry and hazardous good remaining in the bowl.

Regardless of whether we have the Cameron Street Bridge or not trucks have to travel back and forth to/from Intercontinental Pulp, Prince George Pulp and Paper, FMC, the Refinery and Chemtrade.

Having the bridge is better than not having it.

Only a complete relocation of all the above mentioned plants (fat chance of that going to happen) would remove industry and hazardous goods from the bowl.

Maybe we'll have a new bridge just in time to have the Pulp Mills shut down (at the end of their usefull life - coming soon.)

Diplomat. Only trucks coming to or from 1st Ave., River Road, or Highway 16 East would use the Cameron St., Bridge. Any trucks from 97 South, Hiway 16 West and the Hart Hiway would use the John Hart Bridge. Cameron St., Bridge traffic would be a very small percentage of the truck traffic to and from the pulp mills, refinery, FMC, and Chemtrade.

So as I said there is very little traffic that actually utilizes this Bridge, enough to warrant repairing the bridge but hardly enough to warrant a new Bridge.

I am with you all the way! The only thing that makes sense is a low cost repair of the bridge.

Repairing the bridge has absolutely no effect on the fact that a certain number of industrial plants are located in the bowl area.

It would reduce the length of trips for some truck traffic and commuter traffic. i.e. less pollution.

Either fix it for one way traffic or a purely pedestrian bridge - or demolish it.

I say fix it like Palopu says. IMO the City is going for the new bridge because the downtown people want to see Victoria street extended over the CN Rail Yard on 1st Avenue tied into a new bridge. That would surely be the second shoe to drop and would likely cost $50 million before all is said and done. A proposition this city simply can not afford on its own, when an industrial ring road is needed much more for economic considerations.

It looks like the city was trying to sell half their project idea to the upper levels of government and to the local tax payers, and in the context of half a plan, the whole idea did not make any sense to anyone not looking at the big picture. Looking at the big picture the upper levels of government would in no way want to get their foot in the door on a $50+ million dollar inner city project that has nothing to do with provincial or federal infrastructure.

Honesty would have went a long way in making the arguement for the new bridge. The evasive way they went about things brought the results they got in the end.

Meanwhile all those people in the Hart that put the Mayor in office over this bridge have had just the opposite for the last three years, when the right thing to do was to have the bridge fixed so it would be good for another decade.

So the mayor is on board with this one ..... why has nothing happened?

>"So the mayor is on board with this one .....

"Walking the plank" is probably more descriptive?