Solution found to winterize the Port Mann bridge

Temperatures are barely hitting below zero but if a winter storm does hit the Lower Mainland, the company that oversees the new Port Mann bridge says it will be spared its wrath.

Preparations are underway with workers busily installing the latest snow removal tool on each of the bridge’s cables that hang over the traffic below. The goal is to prevent the buildup of ice resulting in the small bombs  that fell from the billion-dollar bridge cables during a winter storm in January 2013. The incident ended up causing thousands of dollars in ICBC claims.

Several proposals were put forth by engineers and experts to fix the problem – from ski wax to teflon and a cable sweeper to de-icing  – before the solution was found.

“Now we’ve got are a series of collars around the top of everyone of the cables and they will be released one at a time to remove any accumulation of ice and snow,” Mike Proudfoot, Transportation Investment Corp CEO told Global BC. “There will be a hanger at the top with up to 30 of these chains at a time and the operator will, from a remote control, drop one of them as the snow storm arises and the accumulation starts.”

Engineers concluded the simplest solution to removing snow and ice was to utilize gravity and in the event of a storm, each ring weighing approximately 10 kilograms would be released from the top, to slide down. It comes with some risks as this will be the only bridge in the world to use an unproven technology.

“In the lab we threw a number of conditions at it that are far in excess of that experience of last year,” Proudfoot said. “So the cable collars will operate independently. In a scenario such as that unexpected, the additional collars could be released.”

Currently there are five rings at the top of each cable, which Proudfoot says would be enough to handle a single storm. Eventually there will be 30 on each cable, which would be enough to handle multiple storms.

After the collars are deployed and slide down the cables, they are taken off at the bottom and transported back to the top by an elevator that’s built into the bridge’s tower.

In addition to the cable collars is a new weather station at the top of the south tower.

Proudfoot says it “will provide precipitation, wind load, barometric pressure and any accumulations. that will provide our technicians the ability to monitor the conditions and respond accordingly.”

The timeline for all 30 rings to be in place is within the next two months. At that time the new weather station and rings will be working together and the collars will be able to be deployed by a ‘flick of the switch.’

The Transportation Investment Corporation has said this unforeseen expense is being absorbed by the bridge builder.

But what won’t be absorbed by corporation is the toll on the Port Mann. When the fourth lane opens on the stretch of highway between the Port Mann and Cassier Tunnel next month, the toll will double going from $1.50 per car, each way to $3.

~ with files from Ted Chernecki