Bridge out!

BY SARA KEDDY

Kings County Register

There is a flurry of activity on Valley trails right now. “I’ve got equipment working at five different sites today, from Nictaux to Springfield,” said Valley Trails Coalition coordinator Rick Jacques July 23, the day an excavator was also out early to rip out the condemned Sharpe Brook bridge in Cambridge.

The projects are happening thanks to a combination of funding, volunteer effort, letters of intent for use and development - and many other small details that have kept groups interested in trail development filling out forms for several years.

July 21, local volunteers actually had some hands-on work ripping the boards off the Sharpe Brook span, in readiness for the next day’s excavator work. “It took us five hours,” said Bob Connell, chairman of the Cornwallis River Pathways Society, which looks after a span of abandoned railbed between Cambridge and Coldbrook.

The Sharpe Brook bridge was one of four closed by the Department of Natural Resources earlier in July after inspectors found some serious weaknesses and unsound structurework. The Spittle Brook bridge in Coldbrook will be replaced in the next couple of weeks with a half-arch culvert, and bridges over Graves and Magee brooks in the Aylesford/ Auburn area are also on the list.

Connell said the Sharpe Brook bridge budget is $11,000, but, with volunteer labour and potential breaks on labour and material costs from contractors, could come in less than that. “The new bridge will be 12 feet wide, with two steel I-beams, carry beams and then diagonal decking and railings,” Connell said. A “runner tread” will be laid down the centre of the bridge to take extra wear, which can then be replaced more easily as needed in the future. There will also be “cattle chutes” put up at the ends of the bridge to funnel traffic onto the span, away from a steep drop to the brook below. “We’ll be doing some more work this summer, too - grading, resurfacing with some gravel and then crowning the trail, and then putting crusher dust down for a nice, firm surface.”

The group has also joined the new provincial Coalition for Active Transportation on Community Trails. “It’s just to do with active transportation, and advocate for groups interested in that because there is no organization out there doing it,” Connell says. “It’s not to create any adversity between groups - we’d hope to work with them through the process of trail development, because there are options for trails.

Valley-based groups also include representation from Annapolis Royal, Paradise and Eastern Kings County (the Keirans Pathways Society).