Chianello: Airport Parkway pedestrian bridge construction suspended
By Joanne Chianello, OTTAWA CITIZEN October 4, 2013 9:00 PM
OTTAWA — The latest delay in building a pedestrian bridge over the Airport Parkway is deeply embarrassing for the city, a huge political headache for the councillor and — most important — a frustrating disappointment for the residents of the Hunt Club community who have waited years for a safe way to cross the busy thoroughfare.
Last year, it was a concrete tower that needed to be repoured. Now, it’s even worse: the actual design of the bridge appears flawed and leaves open the possibility the bridge may have to be rebuilt entirely.
City deputy manager Nancy Schepers and River ward Coun. Maria McRae held a joint press conference Friday afternoon to deliver the bad news that the city had fired engineering design firm Genivar and that construction on the bridge was suspended indefinitely. In its place, the city has hired Delcan Corp., which is now fully responsible for the bridge design and is expected to report back with recommendations of how to proceed by mid-November.
Until then, if not longer, the $6.9-million project — which includes the $5-million bridge, cycling and pedestrian pathways, an underpass under the O-Train, and an improved connection to South Keys transit station — is on hold.
The bridge was conceived as a concrete deck supported by steel pipes that attach to a concrete tower. And these pipes were to fit into a steel anchorage piece at the top of the curved tower. Apparently, the pipe-and-anchor design is somewhat unusual, but Genivar’s professional engineers signed off on the blueprints so the project duly went ahead.
However, after Schepers heard concerns from a number of engineers, including ones working for the project’s contractor, Louis W. Bray Construction, she “pressed pause” on the project. The worry was that these rigid pipes, along with the steel anchor on top, would result in an unusually high level of maintenance and shortened life cycle of the bridge.
Schepers stopped short of suggesting the bridge would have been unsafe if built as Genivar had designed it, but did say that, as a professional engineer herself, “in everything that I do, public safety is my overriding responsibility. I take that responsibility seriously.”
The deputy city manager spent $56,000 to hire Buckland and Taylor, a Vancouver-based bridge-engineering firm, to review Genivar’s design. The British Columbia firm recommended design changes that, according to the city, Genivar resisted. On Sept. 5, the city fired Genivar and, in the subsequent days, hired Delcan to take over.
Everyone at city hall is now in full crisis-management mode over this project.
To assuage taxpayers, the city assures us it intends to sue Genivar to recoup losses related to any delays, design review changes and construction costs.
On the political front, McRae has requested a third-party review of the city’s entire bidding process from start to finish, to determine how this sort of mess could be avoided in the future. The outside firm — the engineering issue was considered too technical for the city’s own auditor to handle — hasn’t been hired yet, but a report should be coming to city council’s finance committee later this fall.
As the councillor representing the area where the bridge is located, McRae has been on the receiving end of the email and calls from understandably frustrated residents demanding to know what was happening with the bridge. McRae’s no shrinking violet — she called for an audit of the city’s Orgaworld contract when she was named chair of the environment committee — and she wanted it crystal clear that she was not to blame for the bridge delays.
It was telling that Schepers took pains to point out that very fact.
“This was never her job to deliver the project,” Schepers told reporters. “That’s my job and my staff’s job. And this project will get done.”
So who is to blame? That will be the second-most asked question after “When will the bridge be finished?”
Neither question will likely have a clear answer any time soon.
Reporters heard Friday that the request for qualifications and requests for proposals at the city is highly stringent. Indeed, said Schepers, the scoring formula for choosing the engineering design firm for the bid is heavily weighted toward technical capabilities: 80 per cent of points are related to engineering know-how and experience, and only 20 per cent to price.
It may seem odd that Genivar’s own engineers sign off on its own design blueprints, but as Schepers points out, they are professional engineers who are supposed to be qualified to do this kind of work. They are expected to meet certain standards and criteria spelled out by the city. (The city has informed the Professional Engineers of Ontario of the whole schemozzle.)
But given the anger over this project, the city will immediately be requiring a third-party technical assessment of all individual bridge projects from now on. (If this example is anything to go by, a $56,000 review is a small price to pay if it means avoiding a massive delay.) The city plans to include larger penalties in contracts to discourage delays. And one of the city’s structural engineers will be directly overseeing the Airport Parkway bridge project from now on.
These steps all make sense.
So perhaps the most obvious question is, why were these measures not taken before now? And that may be the toughest question of all to answer.
jchianello@ottawacitizen.comtwitter.com/jchianello
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