On Saturday afternoon, 50 people gathered at the Station on the Green making plans to write letters to the Ontario government, in hopes of staving off Simcoe County’s plans to replace the 99-year-old steel truss Collingwood Street Bridge with a two-lane concrete plan. And on Tuesday afternoon, the County’s response: a slideshow depicting the bridge’s deteriorated condition, information boards stating the case for replacement and several high-ranking County politicians, including Warden Cal Patterson, rebuffing any requests by the save-the-bridge folks to take another look at their rehabilitation solution.
With Monday, February 27 being the mailing deadline (March 3 is the actual deadline) for comments to the Ministry of Environment on the County’s recently completed Environmental Assessment, as well as any “Part II” order requests for a higher level of EA to be done, it would seem that the situation has entered its 11th hour, with any decision at this point being left to the province.
But there were some interesting tidbits to come out of the two meetings last week, signaling there may be another way forward for those in favour of saving the old bridge.
Clearview Deputy Mayor and County Councillor Alicia Savage, for one, rose to speak at the Saturday ratepayers’ meeting, and said she would support any effort to designate the Collingwood Street Bridge as a heritage structure. The validity of such a move was actually acknowledged by Amick, the archaelogical consulting firm who completed the heritage survey portion of the County’s EA, but that statement was overridden in the final report’s recommendation for cost and safety reasons.
Clearview Councillor Thom Paterson, who sits on the citizen’s committee that’s trying to save the bridge, said he’s committed to looking into the possibility of Clearview giving the bridge a heritage designation, but admitted the situation is muddied by the fact that the bridge is owned by the County, not the Township.
Paterson also told the Echo that during Tuesday’s meeting, he received an assurance from Rick Newlove, Simcoe County’s general manager of engineering, planning and environment, that the rehabilitation alternative will be reviewed once more, in more detail, by AECOM, the County’s consulting engineer, with a view to understanding the merits of the option as, in Paterson’s words, “a viable, safe, cost effective and culturally sensitive solution.”
“I told him that we would meet with a couple of their representatives and see where they’re at,” Newlove told the Echo later in the week. “Hopefully, we can do that next week so that anything that comes out of the meeting can be sent as comments before March 3. We’re trying to find solutions, trying to find a midground.”
In case the meetings extend beyond March 3, Paterson said he would be making comment to the Ministry alerting them to the fact that talks are ongoing.
As for what the “midground” solution might be, things are a little up in the air. Collingwood Deputy Mayor Rick Lloyd, who is vice-chair of the County’s Corporate Services Committee that oversees roads and bridges (Clearview Mayor Ken Ferguson is the chair), was at Tuesday’s meeting and perhaps dropped a hint.
“As far as I’m concerned, the County does not rehabilitate bridges,” he said. “The County standard is to build two-lane concrete bridges, and that’s the only thing I would support us doing in this situation. But if the Township decides that they want to take ownership of the bridge and do something else with it, I would support that as well.”
Ferguson, however, did not seem keen at the idea that the bridge might be downloaded to Clearview. “I wouldn’t support that,” he said. “We can’t afford to fix it, and it’s a liability the way it is.”
As for the rehabilitation plan put forward by the citizen’s committee, which includes three people who work in the steel bridge field, Ferguson remained loyal to his own staff. “It’s a case of one engineer’s opinion against another’s,” he said. “I have to trust the one that’s been hired by the County.”
If anyone is interested in writing their own letter to the Ministry of Environment before the mailing deadline of Monday, February 27, they should call Ingrid Schilling at 705-466-2658 for information on how to do so.