The bridge spanning the Nipigon River on the Trans-Canadian highway between Thunder Bay and Nipigon has been well-traveled by Cook County residents, heading to cabins and favorite fishing spots. Since 2013 those travelers have watched as a new bridge has been under construction. Had they been heading north on Sunday, January 10, they would have been shocked to see that the first lanes of the new bridge—opened November 29, 2015—were closed.
According to TBnewswatch.com, Ontario Provincial Police closed Highway 11-17 at the bridge at 3:05 p.m. Sunday when bolts holding the girder to the bearing on an expansion joint broke on the bridge’s north side. When the bolts released, the cables staying the bridge tightened to support it, causing the eastern half of the bridge to rise about two feet.
The bridge closure severed the highway connection between eastern and western Canada, causing concern about stranded motorists in the frigid winter temperatures. The nearby towns of Nipigon and Greenstone prepared community buildings for emergency housing for people who could not reach their homes.
Motorists who had to make the trip from eastern to western Canada were forced to take a long reroute through the United States.
TBnewswatch.com reported that early Monday morning, January 11, engineers weighed down the bridge with 110 concrete blocks weighing 2,721 kilograms each. One lane of traffic on the bridge was reopened at 9 a.m. Monday, with alternating directions of traffic. Ministry of Transportation area contracts engineer Gary Weiss told TBnewswatch.com that safety was paramount in engineering modeling. He said he is confident the added weight will serve as a temporary solution until the cause of the failure can be determined.
Weiss told TBnewswatch, “The one great thing about this bridge is it’s very flexible and a lot of redundancies are built into this bridge. When things move, they look worse than what they really are. When we built this bridge, we built it so it’s not flat the whole time. We built it on a curve so that the weight brings it back down and comes to rest on the bearings.”
Work on the new eastbound lanes of the Nipigon River Bridge and demolition of the existing two-lane bridge continues. The $106-million project, will consist of three towers with cables supporting the bridge deck and a separate sidewalk for pedestrians. The Ministry of Transportation expects construction to be complete in 2017.
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