CPR rail bridge should get a heritage label
This crossing, now used by pedestrians and cyclists, has clear historic value. But the city has allowed it to deteriorate, an obvious example of 'demolition by neglect.'
Barry Padolsky
Published May 10, 2023
On April 26, Ottawa Council voted to overturn a recommendation by its built heritage committee to apply a heritage designation to one of the city’s few surviving 19th-century railway landmarks: the CPR Railway bridge over the Rideau River in the “Hurdman” precinct. This act puts the city “on track” to demolish this historic structure and build a new bridge as recommended by its infrastructure and water services department.
The CPR (M&O Railway) bridge was constructed in 1898 as part of a high-speed passenger rail link from Montreal, New York and Washington to the heart of Canada’s new capital. In 1966, the bridge was relieved of its railway function when the federal government, following the NCC’s Greber Plan (1950), removed the railway network from the capital’s core area. Happily, the CPR bridge was given a new vocation in 1999. With a few minor repairs and modifications, it was repurposed by the City of Ottawa to become a valuable pedestrian and cycling bridge, linking downtown communities on each side of the Rideau River.
So why must the CPR Bridge be demolished and replaced?
First, a note about the CPR bridge’s heritage values. The City of Ottawa Heritage Valuation Report (2023) has confirmed that the CPR bridge qualifies for designation under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act. It is recognized as an early example of a “through plate girder bridge” and “one of the last remnants of the historical rail infrastructure leading to the core of the city.” The city’s report affirms that the bridge has cultural heritage value “for its design, associative and contextual value.”
The CPR bridge is also a landmark with historic values. It was built by the Dominion Bridge Company using steel fabricated by the famed Carnegie Steel Company led by Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish-American billionaire-industrialist- philanthropist. Carnegie’s proud “signature” on the CPR rail bridge can be discovered on the top flange of the northeast girder abutting the easterly bank of the Rideau River. Carnegie played an important role in Ottawa’s cultural history by donating the funds to build the Ottawa Central Library (1905), demolished by City of Ottawa in 1971, and the surviving Rosemount Branch Library (1918). These were among the 1800 “Carnegie” libraries built in the United States and Canada.
Plate-girder bridges were first developed in Britain in the 1850s and proved to be a creative design option in the 19th and early 20th-century worldwide where multiple-pier bridges to span river crossings were optimal. “Through plate girder bridges,” similar to the CPR bridge, have been granted historical designations and preserved in Europe, the U.S. and Canada. So why must Ottawa’s CPR bridge be demolished and replaced?
Because the City of Ottawa infrastructure and water services department (responsible for the stewardship of Ottawa’s bridges) has reported that the CPR bridge is severely deteriorated and in “poor” condition. According to a detailed condition assessment and renewal options study (2018), the cost of rehabilitating the bridge ($11.84 million) would exceed the cost of a new bridge ($9.86 million). The department’s conclusion, indifferent to heritage considerations, is to replace the bridge.
But how did this severe deterioration come about? A close review of the 2018 detailed engineering report is revealing. It appears that from the date that the city acquired the CPR bridge (1996) to the date when the condition assessment was undertaken (2017), the city undertook no serious program of repairs and preventative maintenance that could have stopped the bridge from deteriorating to its sad state in 2017. The report also discovered that the last time the steel bridge was coated (painted) was in 1969, “long exceeding its expected service life.” This evidence, translated into the city’s heritage policy’s language, can be genuinely called “demolition by neglect.”
The city’s built heritage committee’s April 11, 2023 recommendation that council grant heritage designation to the CPR bridge — as a step towards ensuring its rehabilitation and long-term preservation — was supported by Heritage Ottawa, local citizens, local community associations, the Ottawa Railway Historic Circle and significantly, two former senior City of Ottawa bridge engineers who devoted their careers to caring for Ottawa’s bridge infrastructure.
I appeal to Mayor Mark Sutcliffe and Ottawa Council to direct the city manager and staff to report back with a rehabilitation and long-term maintenance strategy that would ensure that the robust, historic and still useful CPR rail bridge over the Rideau River — now a 125-year-old Ottawa landmark — will be conserved for another 125 years, and a joy of future generations.
Barry Padolsky is an Ottawa architect, urban designer and heritage consultant.
https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/padols...-rail-bridge-should-get-a-heritage-label
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