{"id":8818,"date":"2025-06-13T10:51:32","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T13:51:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/?p=8818"},"modified":"2025-06-13T14:28:20","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T17:28:20","slug":"queens-councillors-ok-181000-on-design-work-for-future-bridge-upgrades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/2025\/06\/13\/queens-councillors-ok-181000-on-design-work-for-future-bridge-upgrades\/","title":{"rendered":"Queens councillors OK $181,000 on design work for future bridge upgrades"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

The Region of Queens has greenlit design work to begin on improvements to the town bridge. (Rick Conrad)<\/p><\/div>\n

The Region of Queens is going ahead with design work to make the town bridge safer and more accessible for pedestrians and cyclists.<\/span><\/p>\n

The two-lane bridge over the Mersey River is the main thoroughfare into downtown Liverpool.<\/span><\/p>\n

The steel structure was built in 1958 and spans about 100 metres with an inside width of 9.6 metres. It has a narrow sidewalk on each side. There are no paved shoulders, dedicated bike lanes or barriers to separate traffic from pedestrians.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two years ago, regional council commissioned a technical evaluation from engineering firm CBCL to look at active transportation upgrades. Council at that time decided to hold off on any work until more funding became available from the provincial or federal governments.<\/span><\/p>\n

Simply to maintain the bridge with no improvements would have cost $325,000. To realign the two lanes and expand one sidewalk would have cost $700,000. An active transportation expansion with a dedicated space for pedestrians and cyclists had a price tag of $3.4 million. A totally separate pedestrian bridge over the river was estimated at $4.4 million.<\/span><\/p>\n

Adam Grant, the region\u2019s director of infrastructure, discussed the issue this week at council\u2019s regular meeting. He said those estimates from 2023 would now likely be about 10 per cent more. He recommended the $3.4-million option.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think we get rid of a lot of the challenges that’ll be found working inside the existing structure,” he told councillors.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Going that way would open up an avenue to create bicycle lanes on the existing bridge once the sidewalks are removed, as well as it wouldn’t require a realignment of the street from lanes all the way through to Water Street so it would be less invasive on the existing street structure, and would probably be able to provide a more fulsome solution on the exterior of the bridge as opposed to trying to fit within a kind of more refined area.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Grant said he wanted to get the design work started so that the project would be shovel-ready if funding is secured. Councillors had set aside $181,749 in the region\u2019s capital investment plan.<\/span><\/p>\n

Under the municipality\u2019s current agreement with the province, maintenance and repair work on the bridge is cost-shared 50\/50.<\/span><\/p>\n

But improvements to the bridge would require a new funding agreement, he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point under the agreement we have, they’re under no obligation to entertain any upgrades.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Councillors supported the less costly $3.4-million active transportation expansion, but said they need to look for funding from other levels of government.<\/span><\/p>\n

Deputy Mayor Maddie Charlton said she wants to see the expansion go ahead, but the region needs help from the province.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like we need to address this certainly. It\u2019s not safe. If you\u2019re walking on the bridge now, you’re quite high up, people misstep, and you could very easily be on the road. … We do have cyclists in Queens and so that\u2019s a bit of a problematic place as it is,” Charlton said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re funding the design work. We should have some really meaningful conversations to look for support (for the expansion) because I don\u2019t think we can take that on on our own, nor would it be fair for us to take it on on our own.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Councillors voted unanimously to spend the money for the design work, while directing staff to look for funding for the improvements from the federal and provincial governments.<\/span><\/p>\n

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/bridgedesignjun1225.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Region of Queens is going ahead with design work to make the town bridge safer and more accessible for pedestrians and cyclists. The two-lane bridge over the Mersey River is the main thoroughfare into downtown Liverpool. The steel structure was built in 1958 and spans about 100 metres with an inside width of 9.6 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[1358,958,3213,3214,3212,1200,367,39,95,3215,24,3211,592],"class_list":["post-8818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-news","category-news-posts","tag-active-transportation","tag-adam-grant","tag-bridge-design","tag-cyclists","tag-design-work","tag-funding","tag-infrastructure","tag-liverpool","tag-maddie-charlton","tag-pedestrians","tag-region-of-queens","tag-town-bridge","tag-traffic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8818"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8826,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8818\/revisions\/8826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}