Bow River Bridge rebuild hits the home stretch
Posted Apr 3, 2014 2:01 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The Siksika Nation and surrounding communities will once again be able to cross the Bow River bridge and reconnect with schools, jobs and neighbours in a few months time.
Last year’s flood washed away about 60 meters of Highway 547 and the north part of the bridge, which crosses the Bow River south of Gleichen and about 100 km southeast of Calgary.
The washout has left about $2.1 million of repair work to make the crossing usable again.
Tina Stewart, spokesperson with Alberta Transportation, said it’s one of many challenging projects they’re working on along the Bow River that requires a redesign.
“We are sort of reconstructing it to a pre-flood condition, but given the reconfiguration of the landscape that happened, the amount of erosion, it wasn’t possible to maintain the band at its current span length because so much of the bank had been washed away,” said Stewart.
The new bridge will also allow more water to pass under it, to combat any future flooding.
Stewart said the department is optimistic the bridge and highway should be open to the public once again by June 2014.
