Provincial road crews closed the right lane of the westbound Harbour Bridge in Saint John this week and have begun patchwork.
They’re fixing potholes — dozens of them — that scar all four lanes of the bridge’s surface in both directions.
Several motorists watching the waves at Saints Rest Beach on the city’s west side told Global News it has been difficult to use the bridge as the roadway gets worse.
Some motorists have recorded video of their experiences and posted them to social media.
Saint John Common Councillor David Hickey said councillors are getting a lot of criticism for the bridge’s condition, even though its maintenance is a provincial responsibility.
“I think the narrative is pretty consistent, in that, just frustration over the amount of potholes,” Hickey said. “It is a lot of potholes. I’ve driven it over myself and there is a lot of maintenance that’s needed there.”
The work is only the latest bridge headache for motorists. The province started an overhaul of the bridge in 2021. The bridge was down to one lane in both directions for several months. It was the first of three phases of work to be done on the bridge.
New Brunswick Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Jill Green said the potholes get worse when the region experiences what she calls “freeze-thaw” cycles of weather, noting the province has had several of them already this winter.
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She said 37,000 vehicles cross the bridge each day, putting stress on the patches.
Green said crews would normally use a cold mix of asphalt for repairing winter potholes because asphalt-making plants are shut down during the colder months.
“We’re working now to get some hot-mix asphalt in there with a few of our own small plants that we have to try to make these fixes last longer,” Green said.
“So we are trying to do that to see if we can make it last at least until we get to the construction season.”
That construction season is expected to include extensive repair work on the westbound lanes of the bridge starting in April, weather-permitting.
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