By Daryl Major

Seismic upgrades, possibly Old City gateway feature coming for Bastion Street bridge

Jan 15, 2017 | 7:32 AM

NANAIMO —  A $1.8 million face lift for the Bastion Street bridge in Nanaimo is going ahead this year.

The downtown span near the Old City Quarter was originally built in the 1930’s and had a substantial upgrade in the 70’s. It now needs another renovation, according to the city’s senior manager of engineering Poul Rosen.

“The bridge will be essentially renovated,” he said. “Any sort of deficiencies, such as the bearings and the expansion joints and so on, will be renewed. While we’re doing that, we’re going to be taking some steps to upgrade the bridge from a structural seismic standpoint to help it in the event of an earthquake. It will be less likely to cause damage.”

Design plans for the work are expected to begin in the next few weeks and one area Rosen says they have been asked to investigate is an archway leading to the Old City Quarter.

“A number of years ago there was a suggestion, I believe it was started from the Old City Quarter, that the city introduce a gateway feature,” said Rosen. “Sort of on or near the bridge that sort of leads people in to the Old City Quarter. So there was some architectural renderings that had been discussed at the council levels. They’re interested in finding out more about that.”

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It’s a significant project and Rosen says people can expect traffic disruptions during the construction period, although that won’t be for a while.

“We’ll try and time the construction work to minimize the impact of the tourist season. It’s going to be for six months but we’ll do our best to sort of time it to minimize the impact.”

The work should start in late 2017, according to Rosen.