Napanee railway bridge has lowest ranking in Ontario

By Scott Gardner

NAPANEE – There are 110 bridges in Ontario right now in need of maintenance. You’ve probably driven on a few of them.

Every one of these road and railway bridges is still open to traffic, according to the Bridge Conditions database opened to the public in 2015 by the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario as part of the Ontario Data Project.

MTO inspectors evaluate all the province’s bridges twice a year. The findings are compiled into something called a Bridge Construction Index. The bridge receives a rating out of 100, representing how soon maintenance is required. A rating lower than 60 means that repairs are supposed to be scheduled, although it doesn’t mean that the bridge is unsafe to drive on.

But a number of bridges in the province score well below that mark. Eight of those listed in the database have a score of less than 45. Most are still open to traffic. 

The lowest-rated bridge in the province is a former Canadian National Railway bridge stretching across Highway 401 in Napanee. Its ranking is zero.

A railway bridge over Highway 401 just west of Napanee has the lowest maintenance ranking in Ontario. The tracks are still there but the bridge is no longer in use. Photo by Scott Gardner, QNet News

When you look at the bridge it’s fairly clear that it has been a long while since any train has rolled across the tracks. The old steel and wood of the tracks are overgrown and snow-covered, and hardly visible. The bridge is still accessible to pedestrians, however.

So what does it take to close a bridge? According to Bob Nichols, a spokesperson for the transportation ministry, inspectors evaluate different sections of a bridge as they look for deficiencies. The magnitude of these deficiencies determines what further action, if any, needs to be taken to ensure the safety of the bridge.

“Severe deterioration in a critical area would be of more concern than widespread less severe deterioration,” Nichols said.

The reason the Napanee bridge scored so low in the ministry’s database is that the ministry doesn’t actually own it, he said.

Bridges the ministry doesn’t own get what is called a “simplified inspection,” Nichols explained. The bridge in Napanee got a score of zero by “default,” he said.

The ministry is confident that Highway 401 below the bridge is safe for drivers, he said: “Our inspections have shown that the overall structure is in stable condition and safe for the public travelling the 401 below. We continue to monitor the conditions along all our provincial highways, including this particular location, to ensure our highways remain safe for travellers.”

So who is responsible for the bridge collecting snow above Highway 401?

Nichols directed QNet News to Canadian National Railway; the bridge was built for the CNR in 1960. But a CN spokesperson said the railway doesn’t own it anymore. The bridge was sold to the town of Greater Napanee in 2012, CN’s Jonathan Abecassis said.

But a spokesperson at Napanee’s infrastructure department told QNet News that any queries about a bridge over Highway 401 would have to be directed to the Ministry of Transportation.

Randy Hilliard, the Conservative MPP for Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington, which includes Napanee, said that old railway bridges are often converted for “community recreation” into things like walking and snowmobile trails. Removal of the tracks to allow such uses is usually done at the time of the sale, Hilliard said. 

He said he was surprised to learn the tracks on the Napanee bridge are still in place, adding that he would look into what Napanee plans to do with the “significant purchase” of the bridge.