Victoria’s big blue bridge problem just keeps on ballooning.
City councillors found out yesterday that issues with steel production in China have pushed the Johnson St bridge’s completion date back to March 30, 2018.
With each delay, the initially scheduled completion date of September 30, 2015, seems more unfathomable. Similarly, the estimated (in 2009) $63 million cost of the bridge has almost doubled, currently at $105 million.
No bridge, but yet more troubled water.
Mayor Lisa Helps called the project “a big mess”.
She added that the fault for the delay “is firmly in the contractor’s [PCL Constructors Wescoast] hands.”
Helps also said she doesn’t expect the city to pay for any additional costs created by the delay.
Jonathan Huggett, the city’s project director for the bridge, described the pre-assembly of the bridge as the main source of delay.
Concerns have also been raised about potential corrosion on the bridge’s prefabricated steel components.
