MacKay bridge over Halifax harbour to close weekends of Nov. 24-27, Dec. 1-4

The 53-year-old A. Murray MacKay Bridge over Halifax Harbour will be closed for maintenance spanning two weekends.

“There is no good time to close one of our bridges, but unfortunately more full closures are going to be necessary as the structures require an increasing amount of maintenance as they age,” Halifax Harbour Bridges CEO Tony Wright in a news release Tuesday.

Still referred to locally as “the new bridge,” the MacKay is to be shut from Friday, Nov. 24 at 7 p.m. to Monday, Nov. 27 at 5:30 a.m., and from Friday, Dec. 1 at 7 p.m. to Monday, Dec. 4 at 5:30 a.m.

There have been efforts to revitalize the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge in the last decade, beginning with the Big Lift. Wright said it’s time to focus more attention on the MacKay.

The weekend work will see the replacement of two 10,000-kilogram deck sections where the cracking of steel plates has been detected in recent inspections. They will be the eighth and ninth panels that have been replaced on the MacKay since 2010.

“The bridge is safe and the inspections are doing what they are supposed to be doing: they are identifying challenges that we need to address,” chief bridge engineer Ahsan Chowdhury said in the release.

The construction will require a 100-tonne crane that takes up nearly the entire width of the bridge to remove each deteriorating section and replace it with a new section manufactured at Cherubini Metal Works in Dartmouth. Paving will then integrate the segments with the rest of the bridge.

“We’ve been planning the work for several months. We have specialty workers from across Canada on site. We delayed last weekend to accommodate the Parade of Lights. Unfortunately, with winter weather approaching, we can’t delay any longer,” says Wright.

The parade was postponed to Nov. 25 because of a large rainstorm. Given the inevitable traffic congestion Saturday, HHB and Halifax Transit are recommending parade goers plan on arriving early and staying late in Halifax.

The future of the MacKay bridge has been under discussion since the release of a 2018 engineering report. Bridge engineers have been studying options and a tender to clearly identify the challenges associated with a rehabilitation effort is expected in the coming weeks, according to the release.

The work and closures are weather dependent and subject to change.