A good crowd came out last week to check on the progress of the bridge situation here.
On Oct. 4 Centre Wellington and Wellington County hosted a public information centre regarding proposals for the Badley (Metcalfe) bridge as well as the Victoria Street pedestrian bridge.
Victoria Street bridge
Based in New York City, Jeffrey Grob, a senior associate with Stantec, is a landscape architect specializing in bridge design.
Grob explained that at the last public meeting, numerous alternatives were presented to members of the public.
Winnowing this down, he said the technical advisory committee created evaluation criteria, including heritage, aesthetics, costs, structural issues and maintenance. From that, the top three were worked on further.
“All the top rated designs included see-through parapets,” said Grob.
“However the people coming up to me thought it was a really cool idea … but asked if it was timeless … and wondered how those see-through panels would look in 2050.”
As a result, a study of more traditional railings was undertaken.
“We developed a series of railings which would work with the top three bridge designs,” said Grob.
That information was applied to the designs to create illustrations to show how the bridge would look in context to its surroundings.
Grob compared it to “a park over the water … it has to be its own space.
“People have responded quite well to this … I tell folks that with the alternative that is the three span rigid frame arch structure of the Badley bridge … now they are starting to talk a language that is common.
“They (the bridges) are not the same, but at least they are a similar language with some common elements … creating a family of structures.”
He said “we are still listening and this is an evolution. Nothing has been decided yet.”
“I’m really glad this is being interpreted as contextually appropriate.”
“This looks like it belongs in the village,” Grob said.
Badley (Metcalfe) bridge
Steve Taylor, president of BT Engineering, said the design process of the Badley bridge is nearly complete.
He said the formal EA has been completed, along with public consultation.
Taylor said this meeting illustrated the preferred option – in addition to the process which brought the project to this point.
“The preferred option is a three-span bridge with arches.”
Consideration is being given to form work, which would provide a stone imprint on the abutments and piers.
“It will also have wider sidewalks than what exists today.” He added the widening will allow current accessibility standards to be met.
Taylor stated new parking areas are to be constructed adjacent to the Elora LCBO on lands acquired by the town /Pearle Development. The currently-vacant land is on the south side (uphill) from the LCBO. He said construction of the new bridge will take about one year.
Taylor said one of the reasons the three bridge proposals were integrated is to allow the township’s pedestrian bridge to be constructed in advance of the county project.
He explained the pedestrian bridge would allow continued access from the parking area on the south side of the river to the downtown north of the river.
Taylor also noted there will be a new pedestrian crossing at Metcalfe Street in front of the LCBO.
West Mill Street
Other informational panels at the meeting also delved into concepts for the redesign of West Mill Street and potential solutions to downtown traffic congestion.
Options included low and medium impact alterations that would increase space distributions for pedestrian use and lessen the space for car traffic.
The move in part is to create wider sidewalks and planting areas, create spots for trees, benches and bike storage and to make the area safer.
One option within the proposal would be to make West Mill Street a one way street (westbound only). Such a move would require Price Street to become a one way street northbound from Mill Street to James Street.
Another option touted in the proposal includes signal lights at the intersection of James and Metcalfe Streets (at the Elora Legion).
Though not as costly, a second option to improve traffic flow would require removing six parking spots, while installing streetlights would only involve removing two parking spots.
