Dalhousie Elementary students asked how to solve Shaganappi bridge problem
Flawed $5.9M pedestrian bridge has been sitting on the side of the road since January
City officials say the case of the pesky pedestrian bridge whose span didn't join up properly with its supports has been solved.
While trying to install the bridge over Shaganappi Trail, engineers discovered the pieces were 11 cm shy of aligning. The bridge has been sitting on the side of the road since January.
On Tuesday city officials announced the alignment issue had been fixed and that the bridge will be put in place on Saturday night.
In the meantime, Dalhousie Elementary teacher Steve Tober had turned the conundrum into a real-world lesson for his Grade 3 students. He assigned them to come up with their own engineering solutions to the problem.
"It's in their community, they see this sitting there all the time. The more connections we can make to their lives, the more meaningful the learning is to them," Tober said.
Breanna Vickovic and her team added a block of styrofoam in order to make the bridge and supports fit together.
"I think it's going really well and we are going to make good progress," she said.
Tayte Bilton and her group believe the solution is to add more metal to either side of the bridge.
"To fix the bridge we should add 11 cm to the metal part of the bridge, so instead of adding 11 cm to one side, cause it would be lopsided, we add 5 cm to one and 6 cm to the other so then it won't be as lopsided," she said.
But some of the kids, like Marcos Figuearo, question whether a bridge is even necessary.
"Why would they build a bridge when there's a crosswalk nearby?" he said.
He believes the $5.9 million could have been better spent.
"We could make a school for another million," he said. "You could also build houses for the homeless."
Figuearo's team suggested just designing a new sidewalk up to the crosswalk.