Saskatchewan Highways and Transportation (continued)

Criteria Primary Haul Corridor Grain Haul Route Truck / Commercial Average Annual Daily Traffic Annual Average Daily Traffic Road Class

Weighting 30 20 15 15 20

Structure on Saskatchewan Bridge Inventory

The criteria were used to develop a unified service level and performance objectives for the structures, prioritize repairs and rehabilitation needs, and identify funding needs for operations, maintenance, and repair of structures to maintain structures at a prescribed standard.

Recommendations
Due to inconsistencies between documented and actual bridge conditions, the major recommendation from the study was to conduct a full network inspection. The inspection would identify any unsafe structures and recommend repairs or replacement
to mitigate the potential for liability due to a structure failure. A full inspection would also help to establish the definitive location of each structure, uniform standards across municipal boundaries, and allow for subsequent inspections to be undertaken on a priority basis. By inspecting all structures, SHT would have a base line condition for each bridge that would enable SHT to determine deterioration rates and associated inspection frequencies in the future. This inspection process would also identify those structures in immediate need of attention in contrast to those requiring a less stringent or frequent inspection frequency. Bridge repairs could be prioritized depending on bridge condition, risk and the metrics identified above. Thus, a documented
and defensible bridge inspection frequency program would be developed. With estimated bridge replacement costs of $565 million and culvert replacement costs of $58 million, a bridge inspection, repair and rehabilitation program would likely lead to long term savings.

Other recommendations included:

1. Establishing uniform standards to determine the need for any given bridge or culvert
2. Establish a formal communication protocol between SHT, SARM and all funding agencies to ensure that inventory, inspection and financial information is kept up to date in one central place.
3. Accurately define locations of the structures to assign ownership and maintenance responsibility.
4. Document any structure failure rates to better refine the useful life values used in this analysis.

Asset Management Specialist, David Watt, advises, “While Saskatchewan Highways and Transportation has an extensive asset inventory and history of repairs and maintenance, some of the information was not functional from a management perspective as the existing structure of the information source did not allow for comparative analysis across the network. The web-based GIS provided a unique method to distribute information to SHT, SARM and its 240 members across the province. Moreover, the recommendations from this study will allow SHT to formulate a capital plan for bridge asset management that is transparent and defensible.” AE staff added significant value to this project by providing all 240 rural municipalities with depreciated values for all of their bridge structures via the WEB GIS in advance of Public Sector Accounting Board requirements which require municipalities to report on the depreciated / historical value of all of their tangible capital assets by January 1, 2009.

New cable-stayed bridge will reduce congestion in the BC Lower Mainland

Associated Engineering, as part of a design-build team with Peter Kiewit Sons (PKS) and ND Lea, was selected as the preferred proponent for the new Pitt River Bridge in Coquitlam, BC. The new seven-lane, $200 million bridge across Pitt River will replace the two existing swing bridges that have been in operation since 1985, during which time vehicle traffic has tripled. The project also includes design and construction of a new grade-separated interchange at Lougheed Highway and Mary Hill Bypass.

The design and construction of the Pitt River Bridge is the first contract in BC’s Gateway Program, which will improve infrastructure, reduce congestion, and improve the movement of traffic and goods in the Lower Mainland of BC.

Working with International Bridge Technologies (IBT) of California, Associated Engineering developed an innovative and cost-effective bridge concept using a cable-stayed design. “This design offers significant benefits and advantages,” advises Associated Engineering’s Project Manager Don Kennedy, M.Eng., P.Eng. “The cable-stayed bridge design reduces interference with marine traffic. Also, with a cable-stayed design, there are fewer piers in the river, which will reduce impacts to the environment and marine users.”

Work has already begun on the project, which is expected to be completed by November 2009.