It happens pretty much every year in Quesnel, the city closes the Johnston Bridge loop due to flooding.
But this year only one-way traffic will be allowed to go over the train tracks through the normal alternate route.
Mayor Bob Simpson…
“Traffic going into Johnston Bridge will cross the railway track and cross the bridge and either go into Johnston or up towards the Plywood plant.”
But Simpson says traffic will not be permitted to go the other way…
“We can’t have a situation where if a train is across the tracks, we back traffic coming out of Johnston sub across that bridge, because the bridge is weight restricted just now. And so the possibility, depending on the nature of the traffic that ends up getting loaded onto that bridge, we may exceed our weight ceiling.”
The 10,000 kilogram weight restriction was put in place by the City back in October of 2018 after a bridge inspection revealed some corrosion problems on some of the main beams.
The estimated cost to fix the problem, at that time, was at least four million dollars.