Citizens are invited to take a walk on a $12.1 million pedestrian overpass above Harvey Avenue when it opens next Friday. The structure connects the Central Green neighbourhood with downtown ѻý at Bertram Street.
A grand opening ceremony is set for June 6 at 10 a.m., at the north side of the overpass. It was originally planned for completion years ago, but the first-round of tenders came in far higher than expected and the project had to be re-budgeted.
A similar pedestrian overpass further along Harvey Avenue at Dayton Avenue that connects the Landmark business centre with the Parkinson recreation centre cost just $2.7 million. It opened in 2010.
The Dayton Street overpass included a substantial contribution from the owners of the Landmark business district.
But there was no such contribution toward the newest bridge from the developers of the 625-home Central Green residential project, whose residents will be among the prime beneficiaries of the new overpass.
Construction of the pedestrian bridge was a requirement set many years ago by the Ministry of Transportation and Highways, which has authority over some planning decisions that affect the highway corridor.
City officials say plans for the overpass were conceived before developers were invited to bid on the Central Green site, a property previously owned by the city. “Therefore, it became our burden to carry,” city manager Doug Gilchrist said at a council meeting in September 2023.
In 2019, the Bertram Street pedestrian overpass was estimated to cost $4.4 million in 2019. By 2023, when it was finally approved for construction by the city, the cost had ballooned to $12.1 million.
“I don’t like the fact that itѻý $12 million but my biggest concern is the safety of residents who are crossing the highway,” Mayor Tom Dyas said at the meeting in September 2023. “I don’t care if it happens to be an additional $5 million. If it saves one life, to me itѻý worth it.”
Between the years 2019-2023, according to ICBC data for crashes in which people were injured, the nearby corner of Harvey and Richter Street was the 15th most dangerous intersection in ѻý.
Over that period, there were 88 injury-crashes at that corner. By comparison, there were 207 injury-rashes at Harvey and Dilworth Drive, 185 at Harvey and Spall, and 158 at both Highway 97 and Banks Road and Harvey Avenue and Gordon Drive. There are no pedestrian overpasses at any of those corners, nor are there current plans to build any.
The provincial and federal governments contributed to the cost of building the new pedestrian bridge.