Macdonald Bridge deck replacement project expected to meet timeline

A delay in installing a deck section ontheMacdonald Bridge last weekend won't put the Big Liftsignificantly behind schedule, says a Halifax Harbour Bridges official.

"There was a lot of technical information from installingthe second segment that we wanted to analyse and apply to
the third (one)," chief engineer Jon Eppell said.

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"The other factor was the forecast for theweekend had some fairly high winds and we were a bit nervous
of that as well."

A total of 46 sections on the span of the Macdonald Bridgeneed to be replaced.

This type of construction project has only been doneonce before on the Lion's Gate Bridge in Vancouver.

American Bridge Company is the civil engineeringcompany which did that work and is also doing the Big Lift in Halifax.

Still in learning curve stage

The Lion's Gate project was two years behind schedule.

That isn't likely to happen with theMacdonald bridge deck replacement, Eppell said.

"We did some of the pre-engineering work that the contractorwould normally would do in order to try and have a better gaugefor the schedule of the project," he said.

But bridge officials are not yet sure when the next section will belifted into place or how long it will take.They say are still in the learningcurve stage.

One municipal councillor says it's that unpredictabilitythat's irritating the people she's hearing from.

"For the most part, everybody's putting up with it," said Lorelei Nicoll,District 4, Cole-Harbour-Westphal.

Lane closures expected to end

"There are those that are wondering shouldwe rethink how we are going about doing this? Is it better to have
more pain in a short period of time rather than a small pain over a longerperiod of time."

There is some good news for frustrated commuters dealing with thereduction of one lane on the bridge during the day.

"The bottleneck is right there at the tolls," Nicollsaid."I'm sure the drivers are wondering because there's nobody visiblyworking but the lane's dropped out."

The laneclosureis needed for the safety of the crew doing preparation work underneath the span, but thatshould soonbecome less frequent.

"We're expecting these lane closures to start to go away towardsthe end of this month," said Eppell.

"There may be periodiclane closures as we move through the project but not as much as whatwe've been seeing."