The District of 麻豆社国产is hoping grant funding will help them to move forward with a project to widen the Mamquam Bridge.
At the Feb. 18 regular meeting, councillors voted in favour of endorsing the submission of a grant application to the federal Active Transportation Fund.
The grant would cover the costs for up to 60% of the Mamquam Bridge Active Transportation Widening Project.
The project is estimated to cost up to $3.65 million, with the grant—if successful—covering $2.19 million and the remaining $1.46 million covered by the District's 2026 Annual Transportation Upgrades budget and reserve funds.
“The improvements would be widening to accommodate an all ages and abilities cycling facility on the east side of the bridge that will connect to a future facility north of Mamquam River on Government Road,” District manager of transportation, Brent McMurtry said at the meeting.
According to the report to council, both the Active Transportation Plan and Transportation Master Plan have identified the need to improve the infrastructure over the Mamquam River on Government Road.
“The bridge currently provides a sidewalk on each side but no cycling infrastructure. Cyclists must choose between a very narrow space on the road or sharing the sidewalk with pedestrians,” reads the report.
The proposed improvements include widening the existing sidewalk on the east side of the bridge to accommodate a three-metre wide multi-use path and a widened southbound on-street painted bike lane on the west side of the bridge.
“Additional improvements will include lighting upgrades and a new barrier separating the multi-use pathway from the adjacent northbound travel lane,” the report states.
Local governments had until Feb. 28 to apply for the grant. There is also a $50 million project limit attached to the application—meaning that any project over that figure would not be eligible.
McMurtry said that the widening works would be completed alongside the Mamquam Bridge Rehabilitation Project, which is budgeted for $5 million.
According to the District, the rehabilitation work to the bridge “involves the removal and full-depth repair of delaminated or deteriorated concrete, the installation of galvanized reinforcing steel, embedding of anodes, and a completely new concrete mat overlay.”
If the grant is approved, both rehabilitation and widening construction on the bridge will be planned for 2026.
Council comments
Coun. John French said that he “fully supported” District staff applying for the federal Active Transportation Fund grant.
“I fully support any grant application for free money, it seems like a no-brainer,” he said.
“Let’s just hope now that the government likes the application as much as we do and gives us the money.
Councillors Chris Pettingill and Jenna Stoner both noted that the money wasn’t “entirely free” but also supported applying for the financial help.
“It does make sense for all the reasons stated. I think this will be an important act of transit piece of infrastructure,” Pettingill said.
“It’s not quite free, because we have to come up with some of the money but you know, leveraging the cost savings of other projects and the grant money makes a lot of sense.”
Coun. Stoner also endorsed completing both the rehabilitation and widening projects concurrently.
“It’s really expensive to deliver active transportation projects so I think maximizing the amount of federal or provincial monies we can get to do so is important,” she said.
“We know that this area is a bottleneck … for two of our key north, south transportation routes. So I think addressing it in tandem with the ongoing works will be helpful and will also result in some cost savings.
“So while it puts a project on hold for a year and increases the scope a little bit, I think it will deliver more benefit for our community members over time.”
Mayor Armand Hurford said the District should use the opportunity to take control of how people can cross the Mamquam River.
“I know there's a few others around this table that remember the original bridge or the last bridge that was there and what we have today is a massive improvement from that, but we do need to continue to move forward,” he said.
“When I think about crossing the Mamquam, we don't have complete control over that, if any, on the highway bridge that channels the bulk of our active transportation routes. At this point in time, it’s narrow, it's almost one way traffic only.
“I think that if we have the ability to take control of how we cross the Mamquam on a piece of our infrastructure, we should absolutely take that opportunity. So I am happy to see that there are some cost efficiencies here and I would hate to see us needing to go back in and do a project one and a half times to achieve something.”
Councillors Andrew Hamilton and Lauren Greenlaw both raised concerns over potential cost increases with the project being an issue in the future.
“I am a bit concerned that there will be significant cost escalations just because having seen enough municipal construction budgets, this number seems quite low to me,” Coun. Greenlaw said.
“But I’m happy to hear that there is a 35% contingency built into the estimate and that if there are significant cost escalations, then we can decline or return the grant money which gives me more confidence in the process.”
Coun. Hamilton was the only member to oppose the motion.
“I’m going to reluctantly not support the motion and I absolutely believe that we need to supply more active transportation and I absolutely see the benefit to this project being in tandem with the Mamquam bridge resurfacing,” he said.
“My challenge here is that I’m not actually confident that this project, given the uncertainties with approvals that we are going to need … will be able to be delivered within this budget, on this timeline, it all seems very optimistic to me,” he said.
If the District is not successful with the grant funding application, the timing of the project will be confirmed through the 2026 budget cycle and guided by the Transportation Master Plan.
For more information on the Mamquam Bridge projects, visit the .
