Historic Inglewood bridge to get $19M replacement

A historic bridge in Inglewood will have to be torn down once its $19-million replacement is built, city engineers have concluded.

• 2 Calgary bridges, near zoo and Fort Calgary, to be replaced

Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra was hoping the bridge over the Bow River at 12th Street southeast could be saved for pedestrians and cyclists.

However, engineers have determined it would take too much work to save the span, which opened to horse and buggy traffic in 1908. 

So the old truss bridge will be torn down once the new one is built just west of it, Carra says.

"The project would be to put it next to it and that gives us the opportunity to kink the entrance into Inglewood which will slow traffic down," he said.

"There's a tendency right now to launch off the bridge and really sort of addressing the super-width of 12th Street and the super-narrowness of the current bridge situation. We want to rectify all of that."

A city report last year concluded the bridge would have to be closed to traffic later this decade. Since the 2013 flood, trucks have not been allowed on it. 

The design of the new bridge will be revealed later this year.

Construction will start in 2016 with completion anticipated by winter 2017. The city is holding an open house Wednesday at the Inglewood Community Association. 

Another historic bridge in Inglewood, the Ninth Avenue span by Fort Calgary that passes over the Elbow River, is also nearing the end of its usable life. It was built in 1909. Construction of a new four-lane span is slated to begin in 2018.

It is crossed by roughly 21,000 vehicles per weekday, and the 12th Street crossing sees about 8,000 per day, according to city traffic data from 2012.