Work to repair the pedestrian and cycle pathway on the Matapihi Rail Bridge is due to start next Tuesday.
The bridge will be closed while the repairs are undertaken.
Repair work on the Matapihi Rail Bridge will begin next week.
The repair work is due to be completed by the end of January and involves replacing the timber decking, beams and struts as well as the steel supports.
The ramps at the end of the bridge will also be upgraded and the handrails will be replaced with slightly higher ones to meet current safety standards, says a Tauranga City Council spokesperson.
Most of the work will be done using a special platform that will hang under the bridge.
The Matapihi Rail Bridge is 88-years-old and the pathway along the side was added at the end of 1950 as a way for people to walk across the bridge safely.
A TCC spokesperson says this was as a result of the numerous deaths and injuries to people walking over the rail bridge on the train tracks.
A visual inspection done in January this year, followed by a structural investigation in March, indicated that there was significant rotting and rusting to the wooden beams and steel supports under the pathway that needed to be repaired.
Fulton Hogan will be doing the work on behalf of Tauranga City Council.
3 comments
unbelievable!
Posted on 21-10-2012 08:29 | By Helenw1
As a user of the bridge i just want to put it out there that i am utterly disappointed at the councils timing of repairing the walkway. They had an engineers report done in May and they wait till now - daylight savings, Christmas the holiday period!!!do they not have an idea how many people use the bridge while the weather is warmer for recreation purposes as well as a free, healthy way to commute to work. I am guessing there is not one counsellor that uses this bridge or else it would have been done by now and wouldn't take 3 1/2 months to repair!!
BASKET CASES
Posted on 22-10-2012 08:59 | By RORTSCAM
Probably more like 4months and at least a $million later what an absolute crock of old cobblers.TCC ratepayers will never get a proper accounting or truthful explanation for this piece of nonsense.
ANOTHER WORLD
Posted on 22-10-2012 22:17 | By Secret Squirrel
Not so long ago the talk was all the rage that the bridge was past it, that it needed to be replaced, now a windfall has arrived and the walk way is being replaced. I guess in a couple of years the rail bridge will go and leave jus tthe walk way?
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