Achi news desk-
Emergency repairs closed part of the MacKay Bridge in Halifax after a crack was found in a steel truss.
The issue was discovered on Wednesday night by a painting crew. Halifax Harbor Bridges (HHB) says the engineering team was alerted, at which time it was partially closed for repairs.
The bridge commission says the crack is less than two centimeters long. No other cracks were found, and he says there was no security threat.
The bridge fully reopened around 5:30 a.m. Thursday.
HHB CEO Tony Wright says bridge closures are not taken lightly and there are likely to be more over the next few years to deal with the maintenance of aging bridges.
“Right now we’re going through what we refer to as a seal and paint program, where we’re taking all the steel back to bare steel and then recoating it, and along the way making structural repairs to it. Replacing the bearings and the expansion joints, and basically when we finish that program we’ll have a new MacDonald Bridge,” Wright said.
Wright says that much of the work over the past few years has been focused on the MacDonald Bridge – mainly the ‘Big Lift.’
That project began in 2015 and replaced all 46 deck segments over about two years.
It is now something that is being considered for the MacKay.
“We’re referring to that as a major rehabilitation project, and we’re evaluating the feasibility of doing the rehabilitation similar to what we’ve done on the MacDonald Bridge,” Wright said. “Although, this particular bridge, the MacKay, was built significantly differently. It was built very economically back in the seventies, but we need to do our homework and see if it’s possible.”
More closures of the two bridges are expected this summer as part of the commission’s $40 million capital renovation, though it’s too early to say how much and when.
