At its May 20 meeting, the District council approved the expenditure of up to $5 million (plus HST) to address emergency restoration work on the Bracebridge Silver Bridge.
Staff noted that the bridge has experienced a critical failure and has been closed to vehicular and pedestrian traffic since January 6, 2025. Town of Bracebridge operations staff identified unusual issues with the bridge while clearing the snow off and notified District staff.
“The District’s Engineering team attended the site to assess the issue and observed a shift in the bridge that was not present when Silver Bridge was last inspected in November 2024 and immediately took measures to close the bridge,” according to the report to council.
Staff were before council asking for authority to proceed with the installation of structural components to allow further investigative work while undertaking restoration efforts
Staff were also seeking permission to amend the capital budget and forecast to add an additional $4,100,275 to the existing $899,725 for bridge rehabilitation work.
District Commissioner of Engineering and Public Works, James Steele, said the funding will enable further assessment and allow the bridge to be restored to a functional state. “And certainly we’ll know more in the next few months,” said Steele.
Councillor Rick Maloney, who is also the Mayor of Bracebridge, reminded council that the bridge is not just important for transportation but that it’s also an iconic bridge in the community. He said he is pleased that the approach continues to be one of rehabilitation and repair. “And really this next step of being able to take a deeper dive through additional equipment, additional engineering analysis and testing is an important step in continuing on that direction of repair and rehabilitation of our iconic Silver Bridge,” he said. “I’m not naive enough [not] to think things may change as you start to peel the onion, and we may need to reevaluate, but we’re not there yet.”
Councillor Guy Burry, who said a functional bridge should take priority over its heritage value, questioned whether staff had done a cost analysis of restoration versus dismantling what’s there and putting in a new preconstructed bridge.
Steele said it is staff’s intention to get to that point. Councillor Ruth Nishikawa asked how far the authority being sought would go. “If all things go as planned, the authority will be sufficient to restore the bridge to normal operation. If we find something through the investigation where the cost will increase substantially, then we’ll be back to ask for additional authority,” said Steele. “So really, what this does is if we receive this authority, it gives us the ability to return the bridge into an operating state, make it safe, and do an initial restoration which was already planned in the capital plan. So it would allow us to do the scope of work plus restore the bridge…”
Steele said staff would inform both council and the committee as the work progresses. No timeline was given as to when the Silver Bridge could reopen.
You can find the staff report HERE.
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