Bridge to span the Avon River?

BY FRED LAWRENCE

The Hants Journal

NovaNewsNow.com

One of the most controversial issues in decades is gaining momentum. Local councils have requested immediate action from the Department of Transportation (DOT) to install a barrier to divide the Highway 101 crossing at the Avon River Causeway.

West Hants Warden Richard Dauphinee said the current situation is “very dangerous and something has to be done to eliminate the bottleneck at the causeway.”

A recent meeting of Windsor, West Hants and Hantsport councils produced a letter that requests a temporary barrier be installed to divide the highway across the Avon River. Several fatal accidents in recent months and numerous other vehicle crashes have caused concern for fire departments, ambulance services and other safety organizations that agree the current situation must be addressed in the near future. An excerpt of the letter reads as follows:

“Concern was raised that twinning of the section of Highway 101 between exits 6 and 7, which includes the Causeway, may be delayed pending the completion of environmental impact studies. The councils are extremely concerned that this decision could increase an already existing dangerous situation that will create a ‘bottleneck’ as motorists would need to reduce speed when approaching and leaving this section of highway.”

Dauphinee said West Hants’s stance hasn’t changed with regard to speeding up the twinning process. “Our position is no different than it was before; what we’re saying is finish the highway. If DOT is doing a study on the causeway, fine, but in the meantime put a ‘Jersey Barrier’ in the middle of the road to stop cars from passing because we don’t want any more people killed.”

Dauphinee said there have been too many accidents on that highway and something has to be done as soon as possible to avert another tragedy. “If, in the end, a bridge is decided the best course to cross the river, fine, but for now we don’t want drivers coming off a twinned highway into the bottleneck that’s there now. People get into a mindset that the highway is twinned straight through and that’s when accidents happen,” he said.

Mayor favours safety first

Windsor Mayor Anna Allen said she’s in favour of making the highway safer. “Whatever the department of transportation decides to do must address the immediate concerns of the bottleneck at the causeway. They’ve been working hard on twinning and we don’t want it (progress at causeway) delayed any longer. Anything that would speed up traffic flow would be good,” she said.

West Hants councillor Randy Matheson said he thought the causeway should never have been built in the first place. “I know the mistake was made back then, but let’s not make the same mistake again. We need to look at what the best solution is for everyone and have full studies on both sides of the causeway before anything is done with the gate systems.”

DOT engineer Phil Corkum has been designing highway structures for more than two decades and said his design for the immediate future is to install a concrete barrier to divide traffic at the causeway as soon as funding becomes available. “The twinning is on schedule and we’re moving ahead. That’s the good news,” Corkum said.

DOT plans to install a barrier to divide the lanes on the causeway, Corkum said, but the big picture includes building a freestanding concrete bridge instead of adding more rock to the existing causeway.

Corkum said his department will “shift the alignment of the causeway on the western end at Falmouth and will go downstream to build a new bridge.”

The current gate system will not be changed during this phase, Corkum said. “The bridge will be designed for a 100-series highway to keep the speed up to 100 kilometres per hour.”

Corkum said he wasn’t certain how long the Environmental Impact Assessment will take, “but we’ll be moving ahead with (bridge) construction inside two to three years. But there has been no allocation of funding for that section,” he said, noting no cost estimate has been completed to-date either.

The design for the bridge will take into account the enormous pressure from the world’s highest and most powerful tides. “The bridge design will withstand any tidal pressure or water force with no problems,” Corkum said. The new bridge will be a single structure without sections and will “go from bank to bank without pillars or centre supports” Corkum said, noting the structure will be mounted on abutments at each end of the highway. The bridge, including the existing causeway, will create a six-lane section to accommodate the exits on both sides of the river.

Windsor VIC ‘won’t have to go’

Concerns have been raised regarding the Windsor Visitor Information Centre’s position within the twinning zone, but Corkum said there should be enough room to accommodate the new interchange. “I suspect the VIC will not have to go to another location,” he said.

Friends of the Avon River are concerned that free traffic flow will threaten free tidal flow. Chairperson of the friends of the Avon River (FAR), Sonja Woods, said DOT plans have not yet addressed the issue of the “harm caused by the tidal barrier.”

Wood said a letter had been sent to the federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans regarding concerns about the effects on the aquatic ecosystems resulting from the installation of the dam in 1970.

Wood contends there is much scientific research that concludes the sluice gates are “what keep the migratory fish, including the endangered Atlantic salmon, from entering their spawning areas to the upper reaches of the Avon River.” She said building bridge(s) downstream from the causeway prohibits DOT from “submitting a proposal that would ‘trigger’ a look at the need for fish passage.

“They will now conduct an EA (Environmental Assessment) to look into the construction of the bridges not to return to free tidal flow, but simply for free traffic flow.”

Wood said her group understands the need for safer traffic along the causeway, but doesn’t want the pressure to speed up vehicles to bury the issue of eventually breaching the sluice gates to restore partial or total free tidal flow to the once second-largest tidal estuary in the province.