johnsonstreetbridge.ORG Letter to Council – Refurbishment of Victoria’s Blue Bridge Viable

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On September 24th Victoria City Council granted itself two weeks to ask further questions to staff after being notified the expected Federal/Provincial infrastructure stimulus funding for a replacement of the Johnson Street Bridge would not be forthcoming.

Johnson Street Bridge Victoria

While council was considering their own questions, maybe seeking alternatives, johnsonstreetbridge.ORG put together a letter to Mayor Dean Fortin and all city councillors outlining not only questions that need answering, but providing reliable information, links and notes from experienced bridge engineers – the expertise that should be recognized and tapped for complete consideration, and due diligence.

Thursday October 8th the Governance and Priorities Committee will meet (8:30 AM start), with item #14 on the agenda being an update on the Johnson Street Bridge.

Some notes for consideration

• The Johnson Street Bridge maybe the only ‘double’ bascule left worldwide – separate rail and road lift sections. Augmenting the argument for historical preservation.
• Oregon, Washington State and others have been restoring and repairing their Historical Bridges under set schedules without full seismic upgrading – priorities for earthquake provision going to schools, hospitals, emergency communication centres and government offices.

The Letter to council is 32 pages (notes and documents attached) – download the complete PDF file (3.2 MBS)

October 6, 2009

Mayor Dean Fortin and Victoria City Council 1 Centennial Square Victoria, BC Canada V8W 1P6

Re: The Future of the Johnson Street Bridge

Dear Mayor and Councillors,

On September 24, the City of Victoria was told that it would not be receiving infrastructure stimulus funds for a new Johnson Street Bridge. Although this news was disappointing to many, we hope it will allow the City to consider the opportunities for repairing the existing bridge that were not addressed during the rush to meet the May 1 application deadline for stimulus funds.

Victoria is not the only place that has had to deal with the challenges of aging steel bridges. San Francisco, Portland, Toronto, and numerous other cities have decided to spend money refurbishing such structures, not only to preserve their industrial heritage, but because rehabilitation is less expensive than building a completely new bridge. We believe Victoria can learn from their experience.

Over past two weeks, we have contacted several engineers with many years of practice in the rehabilitation of heritage bridges. They have examined Delcan’s condition assessment of the existing bridge, and we believe you should do so as well. We have also identified several examples of successful refurbishment projects of similar moving bridges in other cites, and interviewed historians who have provided greater context for understanding our own bridge.

Recently, for example, we spoke with Ed Wortman, a veteran engineer in Portland with more than 15 years’ experience rehabilitating that city’s movable bridges. He said this:

I would recommend doing a thorough structural/mechanical/electrical rehab of the Johnson Street Bridge as outlined by Delcan but WITHOUT the seismic retrofit. This could reduce the cost of the “Repair” option to something on the order of $8 to $10 million. Even if the rehab cost grows substantially during final design and construction (say to $15 or $20 million), it would still provide a reliable structure for at least the next 40 to 50 years barring a major quake. If the “Big One” occurs during that period, Victoria will have plenty to deal with other than the possible loss of the Johnson Street Bridge.

(Mr. Wortman’s correspondence is on pp. 8 and 9 in the notes following this letter.)

We also spoke with Eric DeLony, a historian who spent 23 years managing the Historic American Engineering Record, a national archive of America’s industrial, engineering and technological heritage for the U.S. Department of the Interior. Mr. DeLony advised us that as far as he is aware, the Johnson Street Bridge is the only parallel-spanned Strauss bascule bridge in existence. That fact alone should give the City pause – and may even assist the City with refurbishing the bridge, as we describe below.

We appreciate the belief held by some councillors that they “can’t unknow” the problems with the existing bridge. At the same time, we hope you remain open to new information before deciding how to proceed. We herewith provide the results of our research, and describe steps we believe the City should take before committing $63 million to a replacement structure.

1. The City should identify the specific repair work that needs to be done immediately to the existing bridge. A few officials have claimed that the City must immediately build a new bridge because the existing one will be vulnerable in a large earthquake. However, it is impossible to know whether such an earthquake will happen tomorrow or 100 years from now. Therefore, the City should first deal with the immediate concerns of the existing bridge.

Delcan’s condition assessment says the only work needing immediate attention is limited to the bridge’s mechanical and electrical systems. Page E-2 says the following:

• The mechanical system is in relatively good condition but needs specific repairs. Many of the mechanical elements are obsolete and it may be difficult to find replacement parts;
• The motor brake system should be replaced; and
• The electrical system is obsolete and should be replaced to avoid unscheduled bridge closures.

Page 6-9 states that this mechanical work will cost $0.4 million, and the electrical will cost $1.6 million. The electrical work may cost less: we have been advised that local companies such as Troy Electric can replace the bridge’s three-phase 75 HP electric motors for $15,000 apiece.

2. The City should decide what degree of seismic vulnerability is “acceptable” for the existing bridge. Obviously, the City wants to protect its citizens. However, every engineering project must undergo a cost-benefit analysis, and it seems financially imprudent to dedicate $63 million to secure a single piece of civic infrastructure when thousands of buildings in Victoria – including parts of City Hall and the Jubilee Hospital – have not been seismically upgraded at all.

Bridge-owner agencies in the Portland area have done similar cost-benefit analyses, and have generally decided that full-scale seismic upgrading is not worth the expense relative to more immediate needs. Mr. Wortman advised us, “The general attitude has been that seismic upgrading is a relatively low priority given limited funds and the substantial risk of structural or mechanical/electrical failures in the near future.”

We note that regional emergency plans do not include the existing bridge – therefore, there will be no change to those plans if it becomes inoperable after a severe earthquake. The CRD’s evacuation route map (notes p. 11) does not use the bridge. Page 5-9 of Delcan’s condition

assessment says the following: “Retrofitting to emergency route or lifeline status, however, is probably not required given that emergency services, in accordance with discussions with the City, do not need to use the bridge.”

We also note that provincial earthquake maps (notes p. 12) indicate that a high degree of amplification and liquefaction will affect the approaches around a new bridge, mainly because most of the land on both sides of the channel (including the former ravine directly west of Market Square) have been filled in with soil. Even if a new bridge survives an 8.5 earthquake, it is unlikely that emergency vehicles will have access to it.

3. The City should examine in detail the wide range of seismic upgrade options listed in Delcan’s condition assessment. The PowerPoint presentations delivered to the Committee of the Whole on April 2 and 23 in conjunction with Mike Mulvihill and Hugh Hawk of Delcan essentially provided the Committee with two choices: to repair and seismically upgrade the bridge for $25-30 million, or to replace it for $35-40 million.

However, on pages 5-1 to 5-11, Delcan’s condition assessment identifies a range of options for seismically upgrading the bridge. The chart on page 5-8 (notes p. 14) compares them: option #4, seismic isolation of the counterweight towers, for example, suggests that the seismic vulnerability of the bridge could be dramatically reduced without damaging the heritage appearance of the structure, and with minimal impact on traffic. Some of these options may greatly reduce the cost of refurbishing the bridge, and still provide considerable seismic safety.

On page 5-1, Delcan notes that “underpinning of the existing foundations would be required to some extent for all alternatives”. This underpinning would greatly increase the cost and difficulty of a seismic upgrade, but “to some extent” suggests that options may exist there as well. Plating of the lattice may not be necessary, or even advisable: Frank J. Nelson, a Seattle bridge engineer, advised us that “Putting steel plate completely over the lattice work is questionable. The bridge was not designed for that weight. And corrosion will continue under the plates.” (notes p. 10)

We attempted to speak with Delcan’s representatives directly, but they said they could not comment without clearance from the City’s engineering department. Therefore, we suggest that Councillors meet with Delcan for clarification of the listed seismic options.

4. The City should seek advice on rehabilitation from an experienced heritage bridge engineer. Delcan’s representatives are professional engineers, but may not be fully experienced in the subspecialty of repairing heritage bridges. (We note that Mr. Mulvihill is Delcan’s VP of business development and Mr. Hawk is principally an engineer of new concrete bridges.) The following engineers may be able to advise the City:

Ed Wortman, PE, senior bridge engineer (retired) for Multnomah County, Oregon. Mr. Wortman has overseen or been involved in the rehabilitation of several of Portland’s movable bridges, including the Hawthorne (vertical lift), Broadway (Rall bascule) and Burnside (Strauss bascule) bridges. He was named Engineer of The Year by the Oregon section of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2004.

Frank J. Nelson, PE, senior supervising engineer, Parsons Brinckerhoff, Seattle, Washington. As state bridge engineer for Oregon’s Department of Transportation, Mr. Nelson managed movable and historic bridge programs for several decades. He currently focuses on inspection, evaluation and design of electrical systems for movable bridges, plus rehabilitation design for historic bridge projects.

The MMM Group, which holds the owner’s representative agreement with the City, is also affiliated with a heritage bridge engineer:

Andy Huctwith, P.Eng, McCormick Rankin Corporation, Kingston, Ontario. Mr Huctwith is a director of the Canadian Association of Heritage Professionals, and a bridge specialist with a background in structural analysis. He has designed, evaluated, and supervised the reconstruction of wood, stone, concrete, and steel bridges of modern and historic design, and has been involved in the evaluation and maintenance of an historic steel Strauss trunnion bascule bridge. McCormick Rankin merged operations with the MMM Group in 2008.

The bridge preservation office of Washington State’s Department of Transportation may be able to provide further suggestions. Johnsonstreetbridge.org is willing to help the City, by raising funds from our hundreds of members to assist with the expense of bringing in a heritage bridge engineer to assess the work required to rehabilitate the existing bridge.

5. The City should examine and learn from the many successful examples of heritage bridge rehabilitation in other cities. At its April 23 meeting, the Committee of the Whole was told about the nightmare of rehabilitating the Fourth Street Bridge in San Francisco, a project which ran two years late and $17 million over budget. This is a cautionary tale, but a rare one.

We spoke with Frank Filice, the manager of capital planning for San Francisco’s Department of Public Works – who was familiar with the Johnson Street Bridge – and he said that comparing Fourth Street to our bridge was like “comparing apples and oranges.” As he noted, the Fourth Street project involved adding a new light-rail line, and burying the bridge’s counterweight underground – huge tasks that are not required here. As well, the Fourth Street bridge, dating to 1917, is an earlier and far more crude Strauss design, in which the counterweight moves straight up and down like a guillotine, putting far greater stresses on the bridge.

Instead, Mr. Filice said a more appropriate comparison would be with his city’s Third Street bridge, the rehabilitation of which we describe below, along with two other relevant projects:

Third Street “Lefty O’Doul” Bridge, San Francisco. Strauss trunnion bascule design, built 1934. Used by 20,000 vehicles daily. Rehabilitated and seismically upgraded in 2000 for $10 million. Closed eight months. Counterweights and steel latticework remain intact. (notes pp. 14-22)

Cherry Street Bridge, Toronto. Strauss trunnion bascule design, built 1933. Significant corrosion and severe deterioration of structural members repaired in 2007 for $2.6 million. Closed five months. Counterweights and latticework intact. (notes pp. 23-26)

Hawthorne Bridge, Portland. Steel vertical lift bridge, 421m long, built 1910. Used by 30,000 vehicles daily plus 3,000 bicycles. Sidewalks widened, completely repaired and recoated in 1999 for $21.3 million. Closed 13 months. Counterweights and latticework intact. (notes pp 27-28)

6. The City should identify exactly how long the existing bridge would need to be closed for repairs. There is no question that commuters and downtown businesses will be affected by closures of the bridge, but those effects can be minimized by careful planning. Mr. Wortman says that after Portland’s experience closing the Hawthorne bridge completely for a year, the county bridge agency has learned to carefully plan its movable bridge repairs, so that it can do construction work in stages and still keep the bridges open to limited vehicle and marine traffic. An example of a similarly staged rehabilitation taking place on Ottawa’s 1898-built Alexandra Bridge follows in our notes (pp 29-31).

In his August 25 letter to us, the City’s bridge project administrator advised that the $1-million rehabilitation work done on the bridge in 1999 “did not include recoating or repainting of the bridge [i.e. rust prevention maintenance], which was necessary to extend the life of the bridge for another 20-30 years.” He also advised that the cost of that recoating would be “in the order of $3-$4 million now.”

The City’s bridge project administrator has suggested that it would need to completely close the bridge for recoating, but Mr. Wortman advises that it should be possible to do half the bridge at a time. In addition, Victoria’s bridge has the unique advantage of having two parallel spans, so that even if one has to be closed temporarily, the other can remain open to traffic.

7. The City should explore options for improved bicycle and pedestrian access to the existing bridge. The Greater Victoria Cycling Coalition has identified numerous problems for cyclists on the current bridge, including the lack of clear access to the Galloping Goose Trail, the absence of sidewalk ramps, the slipperiness of the deck’s metal grating, and poor signage. Most of these can be corrected without the expense of building an entirely new bridge, which would likely consume all the funds for bicycle facilities everywhere else in Victoria for many years.

Councillor Luton has said that it is impossible to cover the entire deck because it the span would catch the wind when raised. However, the City could narrow the bridge to two car lanes, and cover two outer strips for bicycle lanes; alternatively, the City could coat the deck with the kinds of non-slip coatings commonly used on metal-grate floors on ships and oil rigs.

The City could work with Sharp and Diamond and the Citizens’ Advisory Committee to design improved approaches around the existing bridge. The City could also bring in an expert from Portland to advise on the integration of cycling facilities into heritage bridges.

8. The City should fully disclose and discuss with taxpayers the financial impacts of replacing the bridge versus repairing it. As the assistant city manager has stated, if the City borrows $63 million, it will be “financially strapped,” and will need to significantly raise property taxes to undertake any other project such as repairing Crystal Pool or treating sewage. The assistant city manager has also warned that the City will have to cut services to manage the

staff resources that would be diverted to a new bridge project; as we saw last week, the Victoria Police Department had to withdraw from the Regional Crime Unit just to save money. These consequences to citizens and downtown businesses will be just as bad – if not worse – than temporary closures associated with repairing the existing bridge.

The FAQ on the City’s website suggests that it is considering eliminating the railway portion from a new bridge to save money, and presumably to leverage funds from other governments and organizations to help pay the cost of keeping the rails. To be equitable, the City should also demand funds – or significantly increase the tolls for lifting the span – from Upper Harbour businesses that require a movable bridge in the first place.

9. If the City intends to continue with replacement, it should seek a clear mandate to proceed in a referendum. The City may decide to use the “alternative approval process” (counter-petition) described in the Community Charter, but that is not a fair means of determining public will, as it depends entirely upon the organizational resources of citizens. Only a referendum will provide a clear, verifiable decision by the people who will be paying the entire cost of the project.

The FAQ on the City’s website says that a referendum is mainly used for “nice to do” projects, and therefore won’t be used in this case. In fact, citizens have voted throughout Victoria’s history on essential capital projects, including the relocation of the water supply to Sooke Lake, the replacement of the city’s streetcars with buses, the construction of Centennial Square, and the creation of the Greater Victoria Public Library system. In 1992, Victorians voted on eight capital projects, including spending $18.5 million to build the police station on Caledonia Street. We hope the City does not think the police station was merely “nice to do.”

A clear choice exists: to repair the existing bridge for $23 million, or to replace it for $63 million. The condition assessment states that refurbishment is feasible. To claim that there is no alternative to replacement is false.

What the City must do, at a minimum, is to repair the existing bridge – to preserve its heritage, to protect the last rail link to downtown, and to maintain public services without burdening the municipality under massive debt. If anything, building a $63-million tourist-attraction bridge is the option that is merely “nice to do.”

Conclusion. We respect the work that the City has done preparing for a new bridge. But now that it is clear that Victorians will have to pay the entire bill, the City must seriously re-examine the less-costly possibilities of repairing the existing bridge.

It need not do so painfully, or with misgivings. Cities across North America have wrestled with repairing their old bridges, and in the process, many have awakened to the value of such structures, and learned to take pride in them. A similar change has also taken place within the engineering profession itself. In 2003, the American Society of Civil Engineers first issued a policy statement about the rehabilitation of historic bridges, which it renewed in 2009:

Bridges are a visible icon of the civil engineer’s art. Historic bridges are important links to our past, serve as safe and vital transportation routes in the present, and can continue to serve as important elements of our transportation systems in the future. Rehabilitation maintains these important engineering works in service and can represent significant cost savings compared to replacement facilities. By demonstrating interest in the rehabilitation and reuse of historic bridges, the civil engineering profession acknowledges the value of these structures as cultural resources and an awareness of the historic built environment.

We hope you will agree. We wish you good luck – and the courage to ask difficult questions – in your deliberations over this important project.

With kind regards, JOHNSONSTREETBRIDGE.ORG

Ross Crockford, director Yule Heibel, director Mat Wright, director

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