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The High Level bridge is a punchline for traffic reporters, a source of frustration for commuters and a scourge to inattentive truck drivers unaware of the tight squeeze ahead. With its 3.2-metre clearance, Edmonton’s High Level bridge is the most restrictive road in the city. But it is still marked as a truck route, so drivers beware. |
EDMONTON - Truck driver Trevor Beaudet paced along the sidewalk approaching the High Level Bridge as the sun, shaking his head and looking at his big rig pulled over at the side of the road.
“I don’t know how I’m going to get out of this pickle,” the Manitoba-based driver said to the company’s traffic co-ordinator on the other end of his cellphone.
The “pickle” was this: his trailer was four metres tall, and the yellow and black sign just ahead warned that the High Level Bridge had just 3.2 metres of clearance.
That makes the High Level bridge the most restrictive route in the city.
Until a decade ago, the honour belonged to the notorious 109th Street “Rathole” — a tunnel that allowed just three metres of wiggle room. But while the city eradicated the Rathole in 2000 and replaced with a six-lane road, the High Level is still a key traffic artery.
Built back when the horse and buggy mixed with newfangled automobiles, the bridge remains an official truck route.
Despite reflective warning signs leading to the bridge along both 109th Street and 98th Avenue, and a metal bar dangling above the eastern approach, the century-old span is a classic source of traffic woes.
The High Level’s relationship with troublesome trucks is a punchline for traffic reporters, a source of frustration for commuters and a scourge to truck drivers like Beaudet.
And no, bridge commuters, it’s not your imagination. In 2011, police received 41 calls about over-sized vehicles causing back-ups at or near the High Level.
It happens often enough that about two years ago, CBC Edmonton’s afternoon radio show devised a special “truck-plugging-up-bridge” theme song to the tune of Tequila. Except instead of shouting “Tequila!” people chanted “High Level!” to lead into comedic bridge banter between traffic reporter Rod Kurtz and host Peter Brown about the latest tie-up.
“We decided to just have fun with it instead of getting all up in arms,” Kurtz said. “I know for motorists it’s a pain in the neck, but the theme became a bit of a thing. We had a lot of response to it.”
Sadly, CBC’s High Level theme song was erased. But if Kurtz ever decides to recreate it, there are sure to be regular opportunities to play it on-air.
Edmonton’s director of roadway maintenance Bob Dunford said there are no plans to eliminate the bridge as a truck route, since it is important for smaller commercial delivery vehicles to have paths through the city’s core.
“Most companies, they look at things like the truck route map and define routes for their trucks,” said Dunford.
Of the 41 calls police received in 2011 about over-sized vehicles on or near the bridge, five involved extra large campers and one was a tour bus. The others were semi-trailers or cube delivery vans. Only two of those calls resulted in $250 bylaw violation tickets, said acting Staff Sgt. Barry Maron, head of the Edmonton Police traffic section.
“Most of them didn’t hit anything,” Maron said. “They noticed the problem, hit the warning mark and just needed help backing up.”
Often, it’s the backing up that snarls traffic.
City crews typically have to re-hang the overhead warning poles leading up to the bridge once a month. Hitting that bar usually catches an inattentive driver’s attention, Dunford said.
But sometimes trucks hit either the bridge itself or the rail bridge that most drivers must go under to approach the bridge from the west side.
“I’m amazed sometimes at the fearlessness drivers must have to drive into a condition like that. There are all the signs there that are saying, ‘Be careful,’ yet they carry on,” said Les Coombes.
A service adviser at Kingpin Trailers, he has seen his share of sheepish truck drivers come in over the years with trailers bearing thousands of dollars in damage after a tangle with the steel bridge.
Fernando LeBlanc, manager of operations for Cliff’s Towing and a tow-truck driver with 15 years experience, chuckles when asked whether his company ever helps untangle trucks from the High Level Bridge. The calls, he said, often seem to come during afternoon rush hour. Tow truck drivers never know what shape the truck will be in when they get there, LeBlanc said, but 95 per cent of the time the driver will be from out of town.
“Every one is different,” he said. “A lot of the time, you can get away with taking the air out of the tires. One time we had to take the tires off.”
Sometimes the problem is more severe and trucks that are badly damaged need to be hauled away.
“Here’s the thing about that bridge and aluminum trailers, the bridge is going to win every time,” Dunford said.
City buses, at 3.1-metres tall, fit on the bridge with 10 centimetres to spare. Most fire trucks also fit, though not the larger ladder trucks, said emergency officials.
Maron has seen enough trucks damaged by the bridge that he took action to make sure officers are aware that the police department’s own extra-large vehicles have no place there. Take the mobile command post, a large cube van. “I have very clearly put a sign right on the dash that says, ‘No access to the High Level Bridge,’ so anyone who is not familiar jumps in and they clearly know they can’t go in there,” Maron said. “Thankfully, nobody’s done it yet.”
For Beaudet, it took about an hour Wednesday to safely back his Mack truck out of the chute-like approach to the High Level. He attributed his near run-in with the bridge to a combination of unfamiliarity with the city and confusion with the signs.
He recalled seeing the warnings for a low bridge as he came through the 98th Avenue tunnel under the legislature grounds, but somehow made a navigation error as he tried to get to a new warehouse on the south side. The GPS in his truck did not help.
“I made a wrong turn and I got into a situation where you just can’t get out of it,” Beaudet said. “I was lost. I went left, and low and behold, I had a wall.”
Fortunately, Beaudet knew the height of his truck and stopped well before the bridge. Two pedestrians eventually offered help, stopping traffic so he could back out. A bus driver also helped block the road so he could get out, a nice gesture of professional courtesy, he said.
“I’m constantly looking at signs,” Beaudet said. “Driving five years, that’s never happened to me before.”
High Level Bridge History - Edmonton heritage
Source: The Edmonton Radial Railway Society’s
Early in 1903 the engineers of the Calgary and Edmonton Railway (C & ER), which had reached Strathcona in 1891, began surveys for a possible crossing of the North Saskatchewan River to reach Edmonton. In early May of 1903 the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) purchased the C & ER so any new railroad bridge would be built by CPR.
Early in 1903 the engineers of the Calgary and Edmonton Railway (C & ER), which had reached Strathcona in 1891, began surveys for a possible crossing of the North Saskatchewan River to reach Edmonton. In early May of 1903 the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) purchased the C & ER so any new railroad bridge would be built by CPR.
First train crossing CPR High Level Bridge at Edmonton. Source: Provincial Archives of Alberta, Archives Collection No. B.3618. Construction of the Edmonton High Level Bridge commenced in 1910, with the final girder in place in 1913. The train shown crossing the bridge is drawn after a photo by Ernest Brown titled “First train to cross the CPR High Level Bridge at Edmonton,” probably taken in June of 1913. The deck at the top of the structure carried three tracks; the centre for trains, the two outside for electric streetcars. The road deck was located twenty feet below, with two sidewalks eight feet wide supported on cantilever brackets.
Negotiations among CPR, Edmonton, Strathcona and Alberta were lengthy and it was not until November 30, 1909 that an agreement was signed. Initial plans called merely for a railway bridge but Strathcona pushed for a combined rail and road bridge. The final agreement included a road and sidewalk deck below the railroad and streetcar deck.
Picture: Provincial Archives of Alberta, B3311The erecting traveler that moves on the rails at the extreme edge of the top deck of The High Level Bridge has completed the bridge framework to the last concrete pier on the north bank of the North Saskatchewan River. The five wooden false work supports between piers three and four support the steel until all rivets are in place to hold the steel framework together.
Construction for the 62 foundations of the land piers and four river piers began on August 14, 1910. Construction of the piers was completed in 1911 and erection of the steel commenced almost immediately from the south side. Early in 1913 the steel reached the north side. On June 2, 1913 the first CPR passenger train steamed into Edmonton over the newly completed structure. The first streetcar crossed the bridge on August 11, 1913.
A CPR steam train traverses the High Level Bridge on its way to Calgary. ©Allan Muir Collection,Some interesting numbers
Final cost: exceeded $2 millionLength: 755 m (2,478 ft)
Width: 13 m (43 ft)
Steel: approximately 1 million ft
Rivets: almost 1.4 million
Concrete: 25 thousand barrels
Paint: 22,750 liters (5,000 gallons)
Top deck: approximately 49 m (160 ft) above water level.
©Provincial Archives of Alberta, GS193/2 
High level bridge these days
High level bridge these days
High level bridge these days
Streetcar still goes across the High level Bridge
Streetcar getting onto the bridge from south sideMore Info:
http://zkahlina.ca/eng/2011/04/19/high-level-bridge-history/
http://www.larry-bolch.com/hdr/pages/HDR14.htm
http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/postcards/PC006361.html
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