When City Hall released the draft of the 2024 Budget last week, Port Robinson residents were surprised to find the next phase of the South Main St. Bridge project deferred to 2025.
As ThoroldToday reported, the bridge is in need of replacement and the City hopes to turn the site into an Eco-Park.
There’s three different phases to the project, and each one of them has to be approved in the city budget before it can begin.
Phase one saw the development of an environmental enhancement strategy, phase two entailed the design for the park, and phase three consists of the construction portion of the project.
Last year, the city installed bat boxes and barn swallow nesting structures, to protect the wildlife around the site in anticipation of the eventual construction.
Residents were hoping that phase three would move forward this year, but now the project has been deferred to 2025.
During Tuesday’s city budget meeting, Councillor Henry D’Angela asked City Hall staff for some clarification on the deferral.
“It looks like you’ll be ready to build the bridge most likely by the end of the year,” he said. “So it’s not really a deferral. We’re just putting it in the year it can actually physically take place.”
The City's Manager of Engineering Sean Dunsmore explained the current timeline of the project.
“We’re currently under design,” Dunsmore said. “We have a structural engineer designing it at this point in time. He's probably going to have it done late August, September. So we’ll be deferring it by four months. We won’t be ready to have it tendered anyway until then.”
Port Robinson resident Ron Devereux is set to speak on the deferral at next week's budget meeting.
