Work begins on Asnorveldt bridge

March 19, 2014 · 0 Comments

By Mark Pavilons
It will cost a little over $2.5 million to rebuild the bridge in Asnorveldt.
And while it’s over budget by roughly $500,000, it won’t affect the municipal coffers or local taxpayers.
The reconstruction has officially begun and there will be no “through access” on Dufferin until the end of September, according to Councillor Avia Eek.
“There has been considerable feedback about the possibility of King Street also being closed for the duration of the project–this will not be happening. There will, however, be the odd occasion when, during construction of the new King Street, this road will have to be closed to any and all traffic, but when this is to occur, those specific farmers whose farm operations will be impacted for those couple of days, will be notified.”
She said she’s putting together a list to be passed along to the project manager to allow farmers to make any necessary arrangements for their operations.
Details of the bridge reconstruction, and King St. realignment projects will be posted at king.ca.
“I realize that this project is going to be more than inconvenient to many of us, but patience and working together will make it much easier to endure. On the bright side, the funding ($1.89 million) for the bridge reconstruction project came from the provincial government as part of their grant funding for necessary infrastructure.”
Council awarded the contact to Premier Concrete Inc., in the amount of $2,508,210.45 to rebuild and realign the bridge on King Street in the village.
Funding will come from the MIII government grant, infrastructure reserve and gas tax reserve.
The Township received 12 bids for the work and Premier’s was the lowest.
Council had set aside $2.019 million for the work, and it was included in the 2014 budget. The cost of land acquisition and legal costs were not included in the original budget estimate and these are not eligible for government funding.
Staff recommend that these be recovered from unallocated gas tax revenue and the infrastructure reserve.
Staff will include the land costs in the application for gas tax funding and if it’s approved, it won’t have to touch the infrastructure reserve.