Cameron Street Bridge Costs Climbing

Monday, October 01, 2007 04:32 AM

The Cameron Street Bridge has been off limits to vehicular traffic for more than 2 years

The Cameron Street Bridge is before Prince George City Council again this evening for two issues, both involve money.

Staff will present a report which shows costs associated with the development of a new Cameron Street Bridge are climbing. The report says the new price tag for the south intersection is $1.57 million, and the cost for the north intersection depends on which option Council adopts.

Initially, the intersection improvements were estimated to be about $1.10 million in total and were included in the $9.5 million dollar price tag.

So, if Council goes with the cheaper traffic circle option at the north end of the bridge, the overall cost will be just shy of about $9.3 million. If Council opts for the more expensive traffic signals at the north end, the overall cost will be $10.37 million.

Staff are adding a 20% contingency fund to those estimates, so the cheaper of the two will be in the $11.11 million range.

Council has approval to borrow $5.9 million and was granted $2 million from the Federal and Provincial Governments. The staff report also requests the City spend an extra $200 thousand to widen the pedestrian and bicycle lanes on the bridge.

Then there is the matter of preserving a section of the bridge. The Heritage Commission will present a plan that has a $200 thousand dollar price tag attached to it and includes a provision to have a section of the bridge preserved, proper signage on the new bridge, and the saving of the remaining timbers so the wood can be used for commemorative items.

Also on the Agenda this evening, the University Heights plan will be presented to Council. That project is designed for construction over 20 years and outlines a neighbourhood for some 10 thousand people.

Leisure Services will present a report on the Outdoor Ice Oval. That report includes a detailed account on the gravel extraction, and sale. According to the report, the Ice Oval Society's budget has been revised. It now shows the Ice Oval Society as getting more than $47 thousand dollars for the sale of the gravel from the site, and a further $31 thousand from "fundraising". The last time the Society appeared before Council it requested a grant of up to $50 thousand dollars, that is now being downgraded to a request for $7,000.

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Posted on Monday, October 01, 2007 04:32 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: jonnypg on October 1 2007 6:08 AM

Maybe they can pay for it with the new tail pipe emission testing the premier just promised coming to BC...

Posted by: YamaDooPolCat on October 1 2007 7:28 AM

If we are throwing money around and spending an extra $200 thousand to widen the pedestrian and bicycle lanes on the bridge, then it had better include snowmobiles access as well. It's a "Winter City" remember?

Posted by: seamutt on October 1 2007 7:38 AM

anyone want to bet that the performing arts centre gets money first!

Posted by: giterdun on October 1 2007 7:53 AM

CAMERON ST. BRIDGE COSTS RISING....WHAT A SUPRISE!! WE SHOULD DO A STUDY TO SEE WHAT HAPPENED. BY THAT TIME MAYBEE IT WILL BE ANOTHER FEW MILLION. WHAT THE HELL, IT'S ONLY TAXPAYER MONEY ,THEY GOT LOTS.

Posted by: rightwing on October 1 2007 8:11 AM

Hey Yamadoo whats wrong with bicycle lanes

Posted by: diplomat on October 1 2007 9:43 AM

My final opinion on the Cameron Street Bridge matter: a) repair it for less than a million dollars & keep using the existing connecting roads and then immediately b) tap federal, provincial and municipal funds for the construction of a totally new crossing that will be part of a dangerous route highway system.

To extract sufficient future funding for such a new crossing will be made much more difficult by accepting a paltry 2 million now and spending 11 million on a so-so solution of tearing the old bridge down and making it into a two-lane bridge which still doesn't solve the well-known dangerous traffic problems.

Posted by: seamutt on October 1 2007 1:32 PM

Diplomat for Mayor!

Posted by: owl on October 1 2007 2:13 PM

Kudos to diplomat for applying sound engineering principles!!!!

.... City Hall was given that advice by engineers they commissioned to do the work about a year before the bridge was condemned for vehicle traffic.

I have asked, but keep coming up with stupid reasons, if any at all, for why their advice was not taken.

The option they recommended was a $9 million crossing halfway between the existing bridge and Cottonwood Island Park. The problem appears to be that too many saw this bridge only with a Victoria Street Connection CN yards �fly-over�. That did not have to be included.

Look at page xvii of the report. �Option 2 was found to have the highest Net Present Value at $12.1 million, the highest Benefit Cost Ration at 2.8 and the lowest Capital Cost. Option 2 provides the best value for money and is therefore recommended as the preferred option.�

I find it interesting that no one has pursued this in their attempts to get the City to look at this situation in a more reasonable fashion.

The information is still on the net: http://www.city.pg.bc.ca/city_services/transportation/nechako_study/nechako_study.html

Look at pages xvi and xvii

Posted by: YamaDooPolCat on October 1 2007 4:13 PM

"Hey Yamadoo whats wrong with bicycle lanes"

Nothing as long as the sleds can use them in the winter.

Hey rightwing what's wrong with snowmobile lanes? Certainly cheaper to run than all those upside down SUV's we see driven by people that can't drive every winter.

Posted by: Foo738 on October 1 2007 4:52 PM

What a waste of money.

How short-sighted.

It only perpuates the problem of hazardous goods travelling through the City.

THe industrial area on the river will be moving and so what is it all about?

Surely not for the folks on the Hart to get to town three minutes sooner?

Who is behind this?

It makes no sense.

Posted by: Palopu on October 1 2007 7:53 PM

The new Cameron St., bridge has been a scam from the get go. The Citys Transportation Manager Frank Blues is on record as stating that the bridge could be repaired for (originally) $750,000.00 which included resurfacing, and that the bridge would be good to go for a number of years to come. He wasnt in favour of this option, preferring a new bridge, but nonetheless repairing it was an option.

Those in control at the City chose to ignore this option for the more expensive building of a new superstruture on the existing piers. The cost of which is now in the area of $11 Million and rising.

At the end of the day there will be no more traffic than there was on the old one, and at best we can say we destroyed a Heritage bridge for the sake of spending some money on a steel and cement

((ugly)) bridge.

This is only one of many instances in the last few years where we have been wasting money like it is going out of style.

We dont have leadership in this town. We have a bunch of people who think that spending money and building useless buildings, and structures make them good Managers. If they had to put one red cent of their own money into some of these idea's, they would pack their bags and get out of town as fast as they could.

Its seems there area of expertise is in spending taxpayers money, and nothing else.

Next fiasco on the horizen is the Co-Generating, woodburning plant, that will supposedly heat water to heat downtown buildings and produce electricity for Hydro. This will be sold to us as a way to reduce greenhouse gases, however the only reason that it is being proposed is because the Provincial Government has money available for enviromental projects, and once again the City wants to get its hands on the money. It matters little whether the project makes any sense or not.

One would think that if we wanted to reduce greenhouse gases, we would continue to heat these buildings with natural gas, or electricity as we do now. Why would it be necessary to come up with a third option for heating. The cost of the project, tearing up all the streets, and running pipe through all the buildings is so excessive that we could heat these buildings with gas or electricity for the next 100 years and still save money.

Keep your eye on this one, it will clearly show that we have lost our sanity in this City. Fiscal responsibility is a concept that is totally foreign to City Hall.