Small wooden bridge east of Enderby closed for 3-6 weeks

A small bridge in B.C.’s Southern Interior is closed to vehicle traffic, and will remain that way for the next three to six weeks.

On Wednesday, DriveBC issued a closure alert for Baxter Bridge, located east of Enderby, adding that a small portion of Trinity Valley Road is closed in both directions between Miska and Frederick roads.

The bridge closure also includes a detour via Highway 6 and Highway 97-97A.

DriveBC says the bridge, which spans the Shuswap River, is open to pedestrians, cyclists and small emergency vehicles.

The Ministry of Transportation says one of the support trusses on the wooden bridge has failed, through normal use, compromising the bridge’s load-bearing capacity.

“The safety of the public is the ministry’s top priority,” the ministry said in an email. “Regular inspections are conducted on all bridges to ensure safety and that’s how this closure came about.”

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The ministry said the failure was identified on Nov. 9 during an inspection, with the failure being confirmed by a ministry structural engineer the same day.

It added that staff are exploring options to reduce the repair time and have the bridge open to traffic sooner.

Bridge area manager Chad Marsh said in a letter that “the ministry understands the large impacts this has to people and industry and is exhausting all avenues to shorten this as much as possible, but, unfortunately, the current detour is through Highway 6 and Highway 97/97A.”

Marsh added that the bridge is open to pedestrian traffic if people would like to park at one end or the other and walk across.