More delays for the Portage Bay Bridge

It will still be a couple of more months before the Portage Bridge is availble to use again.

Greg Breen is the Director of Engineering and Infrastructure and says new parts have had to be ordered.

“There’s a few materials the contractor needs to procure to get started…namely some bolts and some tensioning rods,” Breen told council this week at the Committee of the Whole meeting.

“But, once they have those in hand, we’re anticipating that we should, very soon, should start to see some action on that bridge.”

Breen adds the delays weren’t expected, but not unusual.

“Had some really good discussions with the leadership at Park-Derosier. They are fully committed to getting this project done for us, it’s just we have to deal with the things that were discovered when we got into it.”

Breen says some of the steel beams were not the same size as ones ordered, and rusting was worse than what had been expected.

Initially, the bridge was supposed to be open at the end of December but that was moved back to March.

It’s been closed to traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, since October of 2024.