How Do We Know that SOTB has the Answer?
We are a group of individuals used to working on a wide variety of large projects for governments and corporations. We understand process and how a bureaucracy (while trying to move something forward) can easily trip over its own committees. We were enormously lucky when we started the SOTB group to attract a gentleman named Michael Roney. He is a Gananoque resident and professional engineer. His career has seen him focused almost exclusively on railways. He retired in 2013 as General Manager, Track and Structures and Chief Engineer with Canadian Pacific Railway, where he was responsible for track and structures standards, rail maintenance, bridge design, geotechnical groups and track inspection processes. Mr. Roney is also past president and life member of the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association. His team-mates at SOTB are in awe of his bridge knowledge and people network. We could not ask for a better engineering expert in determining the potential of this bridge. His website including full resume, is here.
How Did Council Respond to SOTB request for an inspection.?
SOTB wanted to do an initial bridge inspection at no cost to the Town. Our group decided this was an important step to inform our upcoming delegation presentation on February 4th before Council.
SOTB was requesting access to the top of the now closed bridge to inspect and measure steel. We would have used a standard screwdriver to remove a handful of the top boards and then used railway measuring tools to determine the thickness and strength of the steel in various places. Then we would have screwed the boards back in place.
A Special Council Meeting was called on January 9th to discuss and vote on the SOTB request.
How Did the Special Council Meeting Turn Out?
Three SOTB members attended in council chambers, and our fourth, Professional Engineer Michael Roney, (ex CPR) was connecting virtually from Calgary. When the Chair called upon Mr. Roney, the town’s Cisco/Webex video conferencing failed as it frequently does. Although we could all see, Mr. Roney’s thumbnail picture on the monitor, there was no audio. A Councillor who was connecting remotely from his home, had the same issue.
The crippling technical issues, including auto-generated subtitles, (that turn English to Klingon) meant the technology, which is supposed to enable access, does exactly the opposite.
A screen shot of a Webex meeting from a week later. Audio still inaudible. Click on image to enlarge.
These flaws have been noted with the Town numerous times and everyone knows it happens frequently. SOTB reported the issues with Cisco Webex, and the Town has reassured us that they have engaged with the vendor to solve the issue. However that did nothing to solve the immediate problem.
The Chair then decided to move on to discussion of SOTB’s request, and a subsequent vote without hearing a literal word from our engineer, Mr. Roney.
Note, at these Special Council Meetings, you are given 2 minutes to state your case at the top of the meeting, and then Council members discuss, and you are not allowed to further contribute, or comment. It is not a conversation.
By over-relying on photographs showing rust, a councillor pointed out that the bridge would likely crash down once it had a good snow load. They continued to acknowledge they were not an engineer, but knew all about snow loads from a family connection in Kirkland Lake. As for snow loads, a handful of engineers on the bridge would have been significantly less than the recent snow load. This was confirmed by a safety report by Roney Engineering out of Kingston (at no cost to the Town)
We didn’t have a snow load in January, but we certainly had one by late February. For interest’s sake, we consulted an online program to calculate the weight of the snow. Assuming the bridge is 215 feet long, 10 feet wide and has 24” of wind and rain packed snow on it, it would have been carrying about 100,665 pounds or about 50 tons! https://www.omnicalculator.com/construction/snow-load
Our team are all professionals and carry appropriate amounts of insurance and WCB. We would have been safe and the Town would have received incredibly valuable information for free.