City managers for Coquitlam and New Westminster will meet in two weeks for talks on the aging bailey bridge that links the two municipalities.
Bill Susak, Coquitlam's general manager of engineering and public works, said discussions will come in the first week of September in an effort to hammer out solutions for the one-lane wooden bridge.
In May, Coquitlam city council called on the provincial government to help get the single-lane bridge replaced and asked the Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development for a dispute resolution process.
Coquitlam wants the deteriorating 18-year-old link temporarily converted into two lanes at a cost of $1.7 million. The move came after a structural engineer earlier this year said the bridge had to come down by late 2014 because of wear and tear from the 10,000 vehicles that use it daily.
In response, the Royal City's council passed its own resolution asking for direct talks with Coquitlam, B.C.'s transportation ministry and TransLink to work on a regional transportation plan for the Braid Street industrial area, where the bailey bridge traffic flows.
Yesterday (Tuesday), Jim Lowrie, New West's director of engineering, told The Tri-City News, "Any time you get two parties together to talk, that's a good thing. My expectation is that we will share information with each other... and we can resolve this before the dispute resolution process starts."
