Canada

North America has a kind of mini-Scandinavia of wide inlets and islands in the Maritime provinces of Canada, and the crossings are expensive capital works that require tolls for their financing. The first bridge from the mainland to Prince Edward Island, now named the Confederation Bridge, is a 13km span costing about $500m. The last of the huge prefabricated concrete sections were sucessfully floated out and placed before ice closed the Northumberland Strait to heavy construction this winter, so come the spring in 1997 the bitumen pavement, guardrail and other finishes will be installed for a projected June opening. The tolls? Somewhere around $25, we’re told but it isn’t firm yet.

Meanwhile there are other toll developments in the area. In the Halifax Nova Scotia area the older (‘MacDonald’) of two toll suspension bridges that link Halifax proper with residential areas across the harbor to the northeast is about to have its deck rebuilt and widened in a $50m+ job. Tolling on both the 2-lane MacDonald and newer 4-lane MacKay bridge is being renewed and taken electronic. The Halifax-Dartmouth Bridge Commission (HDBC) late November selected Amtech as its electronic tolling supplier for the 24 toll lanes at the 2 bridges in a $3.7m+ contract with Sirit of Markham Ont, the Canadian partner of MFS.

Sirit is installing new automatic coin machines and electronic toll readers for all 24 lanes at the two toll plazas, but there will be four dedicated e-toll lanes at the MacKay bridge which is an expressway standard, freeflowing facility and something of a western bypass of the central business area of Halifax. HDBC General Manager Steven W Snider says Amtech read-only e-tags (as used in Texas and Oklahoma) are expected to gradually take over from 60c tokens presently sold to commuters. Tokens will continue to be available for those who want them for now. The new tolling system is due online Aug 97.

Widening the Mac: Late in 97 work could begin on an ambitious rebuild of the MacDonald, which carries an average annual 31k v/d. Its 41 year old concrete deck is deteriorating and there are serious daily backups in rush-hours so there’s an ingenious plan to increase capacity. Within the 11m deckspace between the suspenders a pedestrian sidewalk and utility channel will be taken away to allow three 3.5m (11.5’) lanes, the center one to be reversible to cater for the directional rushhour traffic flows. The pedestrians and cyclists will then be looked after with new cantilevered sections outside the suspenders (see section). About 1,500 people a day walk across the bridge presently on the single sidewalk and cyclists are required to walk their bikes for safety. Green support for the project was gained by providing the new separate cycling lane.

The Commission requires two lanes to be kept open during the daytime hours to cater for the bulk of daily traffic so serious construction work will be done at night, but local noise restrictions normally kick in at 9pm. A noise exemption for night work is currently being negotiated with the city so construction crews can work 7pm to 5am. The deck is built in 5m long units and prefabricated steel units of the new cross section will be swapped out every second night of work — the first night being used for preparation, the second night for the removal and replacement. Snider says a similar job was done not long ago on the Lion’s Gate Bridge in Vancouver, which provided helpful lessons on the procedures needed. On the approach spans that presently have heavy concrete deck, lighter orthotropic steel units will be used to provide the wider cross-section without extra loading. Telecom cables have to be relocated under the deck as work proceeds.

H-104, St John: The maritimes have two other major toll makeovers being done by Sirit:

• Highway 104, a $80m 45km toll road under construction in the neck of Nova Scotia between Amherst and Truro for which e-tolling must be in operation on opening of the new 4-lane expressway by the end of 1997

• St John, New Brunswick on the city’s main Harbour Bridge and Highway- 1 which is due to get e-toll mid 1997

Toll officials have been very price conscious according to one official and active tags like Mark IV or Hughes were out of the question because of a price/tag c 1.5 times backscatter tags. An early backscatter favorite was a cheap 134KHz tag but in tests it got jammed by vehicle engines generating signals of the same wavelength. Tests of regular Amtech tags at 915MHz showed no interference problems. Amtech seems well placed to be selected for the Highway-104 and St John bridge e-toll projects.

The new Confederation bridge will not use e-tolling for the time being. Patrons will pay by cash or credit card at manned toll booths though one of five toll lanes may be an unmanned creditcard swipe. At a toll rate of $25+ e-tolling will probably depend on wide use of a transponder driven by a smartcards. (Contact Sirit 905 940 4404; Halifax-Dartmouth Bridge Commission 902 463 2800; Confederation Bridge 902 628 8633)