Victoria has its new bridge. After nine years of controversy, delays and budget overruns, the new Johnson Street Bridge opened on Saturday.
At last, we can enjoy the sleek new structure that makes its predecessor look like a jumble of Meccano pieces. The old bridge has served us well for 94 years, and soon we will say goodbye when it is dismantled.
The new bridge has also served us well — even before it opened. It taught city officials and taxpayers important, painful and expensive lessons about the wrong way to build public projects.
Remember when the new bridge was supposed to cost $35 million to $40 million? It’s now at $105 million, and that’s probably not the final bill. So much for the promised “fixed price” contract.
We learned that starting a project before it’s fully designed is about as risky as common sense suggests it might be. So is ordering all the bridge steel from China. And setting aside only a four per cent contingency fund.
For all its problems, the new bridge got built, thanks to the work of engineers and skilled tradespeople, who laboured out of the limelight to turn a concept into steel and concrete.
Once the old bridge comes down, the new one will change the look of the harbour, probably for the better. With the bridge open to traffic, and drivers, cyclists and pedestrians crossing it by the thousands every day, the memories of the past nine years’ controversies will soon fade.
What should not fade is the city’s determination to do better on future projects, so we get not only a bridge to last a century, but wisdom to last a century.
