GUELPH – A recent decision by the Superior Court of Justice on Monday supports the City Guelph’s process to move ahead with the Niska Road and bridge construction project.
The city was challenged by a recent judicial review application which claimed the decision to replace the one-lane Niska Road bridge with a two-lane bridge contravened the Planning Act.
Despite the time and added financial resources required to address this legal matter, the project itself remains on schedule and on budget and the city expects to open the new bridge by late summer.
“We’re very pleased with the court’s decision,” said Kealy Dedman, city engineer.
“Our goal has been, and will continue to be, to build the bridge as efficiently as possible to allow safe travel along Niska Road.”
The city and the applicant have yet to agree upon the city’s costs for these legal proceedings.
In April 2013, Guelph issued a notice of study commencement for a municipal Class Environmental Assessments (EA) for improvements to Niska Road from Ptarmigan Drive to the City limits including replacement of the existing Bailey bridge over the Speed River.
In 2013 an external engineering consultant conducted an assessment of the Bailey bridge and indicated it was failing.
Over the next few years, the city prolonged the life of the bridge by replacing the deck boards in 2015.
By February 2017 the condition of the bridge posed too big a risk to allow it to remain operational and was closed.
Just over a year later, the bridge was removed by the Canadian Armed Forces as part of a training exercise.
The original bridge crossing the Speed River collapsed in 1974. That bridge was replaced by the Bailey bridge, loaned from the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, as a temporary solution.
