Highway 15 Bridge Twinning | ?m | ?s

[ION]

I really hope/wish that Fort Saskatchewan and commuter rail come together soon. Aka revive the damn rail bridge over the North Sask already. That seems to be the biggest stumbling block in terms of any potential return of rail to the area... Even just a Regiosprinter connection between Clareview and Fort Sask central would be beneficial for both parties... I've taken the commuter bus before and while it's nice to have it's a very shall we say roundabout service... Yes a BRT service would be cheaper to start however in the long run more people would probably use rail if it were an option. Plus it would help intensify and revive Fort Sask... The downtown could probably use all the help it could get after all those power centres on 21 went up...

 

[CplKlinger]

There hasn't been much visible progress on the east side of the river since I last checked, but progress has been made on the underslung multi-use pedestrian bridge. I hope that Sturgeon county expands its trails to connect directly with the bridge, because as you can see in the pictures, there's not much besides the road in the immediate area. It also looks like some of the pillars for the old bridge have been rehabilitated, which was very needed because rebar was showing. I took a picture showing the colour contrast between the new concrete and the concrete on an older pillar.

 

[Airboy]

Like that detail work on the concrete. Nice to see the MUP getting started now as well.

With the quarry ridge Multi use bridge getting started this year. there is going to be quite the cycle route in the valley.

 

[DirtShare]

Hi guys just a couple pictures I have taken of the Ft Sask bridge project over the last little while.

 

[CplKlinger]

Hi guys just a couple pictures I have taken of the Ft Sask bridge project over the last little while.View attachment 295802View attachment 295803View attachment 295804

Those are wonderful pictures! If you have reddit, please consider posting these to the Fort Saskatchewan subreddit because they'd definitely love to see the progress

 

[DirtShare]

Those are wonderful pictures! If you have reddit, please consider posting these to the Fort Saskatchewan subreddit because they'd definitely love to see the progress

Thanks I appreciate it I will do that!

 

[CplKlinger]

According to the Alberta government: Road construction on the west side of the river should begin this spring, and be completed in 2022; road construction in Fort Sask should be completed this summer; and CN will modify the rail crossing this year as well.

 

[CplKlinger]

Update and pictures as of yesterday:

The third river pillar is taking shape (you can see it covered in the white tarp), roadwork on the west side of the railway has started (not pictured), and work is progressing on the road deck and underslung pedestrian bridge, but not much looks different at the moment compared to when I last checked. On the Fort Sask side, there are still concrete storm sewage/drainage works sitting on the new road surface, so it looks like they're still a little ways away from starting the paving. There were some workers still at the site last night (which surprised me given that it was a Sunday night), and if you look carefully at the first picture, you can see one swinging a hammer on the deck near the yellow crane.

 

[EdmTrekker]

Is it 3 lanes on both bridges? I hope so.

 

[CplKlinger]

Is it 3 lanes on both bridges? I hope so.

Nope, there will be two lanes on each bridge I believe. Phase One of the project, the twinning of Highway 15 up to the railway overpass, is already complete. It added two lanes going towards the Fort, so I think the bridge will match it.

 

[Airboy]

Driving by yesterday, looked like they were setting up to start lifting the girders.

 

[DirtShare]

It doesn’t look like a whole lot of progress when just driving by but they’ve acually installed 6 more girders in a little over a month and a lot of work complete on the final pillar, guys have been busy!

 

[CplKlinger]

It doesn’t look like a whole lot of progress when just driving by but they’ve acually installed 6 more girders in a little over a month and a lot of work complete on the final pillar, guys have been busy!
View attachment 304905View attachment 304906View attachment 304907

That's wonderful to see, thanks for the amazing pictures!! I love that each time I return to the Fort, there's always something new to see. They've definitely worked hard over the winter.

 

[Edmcowboy11]

Once this bridge is done, I think this will definitely change some of the traffic flow in and out of the fort.

 

[CplKlinger]

Once this bridge is done, I think this will definitely change some of the traffic flow in and out of the fort.

Eventually for sure, but when I first got announced, then-Transportation Minister Brian Mason said that the current bridge would need to be closed for extensive maintenance. He also said that it'd have to be closed for those repairs regardless of whether we got a new bridge or not, so this'll ensure that we at least have a river crossing while the repairs are ongoing (unless we wanted to use a ferry again like the good ol' days haha).

I'm not surprised though, given what we've learned about its condition from inspection documents described in this article.