While the future of the historic McQuillan’s Bridge on Stone Road hangs in the balance, city officials have shut it down citing public safety concerns.
Closure of the Eramosa River pedestrian crossing, located immediately south of Stone Road, came Wednesday after consultants identified “significant internal corrosion,” explains Terry Gayman, the city’s general manager of engineering.
“The bridge is sort of degrading to a point where it really can't continue to carry an added load beyond its own weight,” he said. “It doesn't mean (the bridge is) going to fail immediately or anything like that but from a public safety perspective it means that the risk is not acceptable and so we do again need to remind people, please stay off the bridge and find an alternate route.”
Notice of the shutdown was posted to the city’s website.
With the bridge no longer accessible, pedestrians are encouraged to walk along Stone Road East in order to cross the river.
“The nearest path over the river is the Stone Road bridge,” Gayman said. “There is a small sidewalk on the side of the road.”
Asked about safety concerns with that recommended alternative, Gayman said, “I think with any sort of pedestrian area we would just recommend everyone in the public whether you're a driver or a pedestrian, take caution and pay close attention to all users of the road.”
However, walking along the road is a "non-starter" in the eyes of Chris Green, director of programming at The Guelph Outdoor School, a non-profit group that uses the McQuillan's Bridge daily.
"It's not safe for us. We work with kids age four to fourteen and having a bunch of four-year-olds on that bridge in the middle of winter is not an option," he said.
"We don't have access to our site, where we run three programs a day, which amounts to over 200 families a week. So we're talking tens of thousand dollars in business and the workaround is not clear."
For now, he said, the school is likely to use space rented from Barber Scout Camp.
"We will use that as a temporary option but we don't have we don't have fire pits. We don't have tarps. We don't have tents. We don't have benches," Green said. "We're not ready."
Constructed in 1916, the bridge is owned by the City of Guelph and was designated for protection under the Ontario Heritage Act in 2004.
The bridge is an early example of reinforced concrete bow string truss construction or tied arch span, built to replace an earlier wooden bridge, explains a post on the city’s website. It gets its name due to its proximity to lots cleared and settled by the McQuillan family.
Released in 2023, a report from city staff following a condition assessment identified McQuillan’s Bridge as being in “poor” condition. Work on an environmental assessment of the bridge, meant to identify potential options for council’s consideration, began last year, design work tentatively scheduled for next year.
“The study will include a number of different things including opportunities to hear from the public around thoughts for the future of the bridge, heritage, cultural heritage considerations and a cultural heritage study report and a number of other study reports that all go into making that type of decision,” Gayman said, noting such studies typically take 12 to 18 months to complete.
If ultimately approved through the city’s annual budget processes, work on the bridge is tentatively scheduled for 2027 and 2028, he added.
McQuillan’s Bridge is also included in the boundary for a draft cultural heritage district study plan for the former Ontario Reformatory property, which council will consider formalizing during a future meeting.