SILVER BRIDGE WILL BE CLOSED FOR ‘AT LEAST MONTHS,’ AS IT TILTS INCHES SAFELY OVER MUSKOKA RIVER FALLS IN BRACEBRIDGE

Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com

BRACEBRIDGE — “Something happened in December.”

And as a result the nearly century-old Silver Bridge on Ecclestone Drive here will be closed for “an unknown period of time of at least months.”

And cost millions to repair — six weeks after an inspection —while detouring traffic around the major river crossing as the bridge remains “tilted to the sidewalk side.”

Gaps “inches” wide spotted on the west sidewalk support side of the Silver Bridge Monday morning means a full structural assessment will be made to determine millions of dollars in repairs as the bridge will remains closed in to the spring for an “unknown time.” This image shows the north end of the bridge closest to Manitoba Street Photos Mark Clairmont

That’s the early assessment by District of Muskoka consultants after a town snow plow operator noticed “spacing” on the underside of the sidewalk while clearing it Monday morning.

“It’s not the way we wanted to start the year,” district chair Jeff Lehman said in a media update this afternoon.

He said after the district’s first goal of closing it for public safety “our next goal is to repair it and bring it back in to operation as soon as possible. But I’m afraid I can’t tell you today when that might be.”

Lehman was joined by district public works department head James Steele and Bracebridge Mayor Rick Maloney.

Bracebridge Mayor Rick Maloney, left, District Chair Jeff Lehman and public works head James Steele briefed the media this afternoon on next steps and speculated on what may have happened in December.

The bridge had been inspected several times in 2024 part of a planned maintenance program.

And it was inspected by Muskoka’s structural consultant company D.M. Wills in November, when it received a visual assessment with no notice of concerns.

Lehman and Steele said the bridge dropped “a few inches” on it’s west side hanging over the Muskoka River’s north branch.

Gaps can be clearly seen from Wharf Road at either end of the span over the massive waterfalls.

Yet both said the bridge remains “safe” and it is in no way in danger of tipping over further according to consultants.

Lehman said a priority was “not adding any more load to the bridge.”

“The bridge shifted slightly on its foundation. The foundation is still intact, but it’s the actual structure itself. So where the bridge sits on the concrete the steel isn’t doing as much of a job as it was supposed to. It’s localized in the immediate area where it’s supported. But the loads have adjusted in the structure and redistributed to support it.

“Certainly the risk is that if we had continued to load it the way it certainly wasn’t going to operate the way it had.”

The south end of the bridge shows another gap, which the district says is still safe from the bridge tipping over the falls.

Steele said when it was first spotted Monday morning the district found out later that day. And immediately they brought in their structural engineer consultants that do all their inspections.

D.M. Wills did an initial “review,” and they were the ones who recommended closing it to traffic Monday night.

Lehman said: “They are already working on ‘what do you do now? How do you bring it back to a state where it’s functional again?”

He added a review will include the entire bridge and could lead to other necessary repairs as part of a plan already underway to maintain it.

Steele said the bridge receives regular inspections and had a thorough inspection in 2023 and was due for a biannual inspection this year.

But in the intervening years visual inspections are done.

The last one was in November of 2024.

The two affected bridge spaces are “definitely inches” apart.

So why over a month ago was it deemed structurally sound to now being possibly unsafe?

It’s had a number of rehabilitation over time.

“But we may never know exactly,” said Steele, “what happened” in the weeks between.

“We can only suspect. So it’s difficult for us to say, especially in the early days. If we get to a point in the future where we’re looking at a forensic analysis of what happened, we can certainly do that. Our focus right now is to get the bridge restore to a state where it can carry traffic again.”

Lehman added: “We don’t want to speculate, but on a larger bridge you’ve got cameras you can see if there is a truck with over heavy load or oversize something going on. Sometimes if there’s an incident you’ll see the incident. There aren’t cameras on all bridges around Muskoka.

“So will have to rely on what the structural engineers and consultants tell us.

“It was a very significant snow event in December. We’re looking at that and the subsequent rain impact. But there were no structural deficiencies found six weeks ago on this bridge.”

“We know roughly when it happened, but not when.”

Lehman and Steele couldn’t say what the maximum load limit is on the bridge, but said it complies with provincial regulations.

And there was no district load limit put on it with signage.

“We don’t control over folks who are overloaded,” said Lehman. “So that’s the other piece to remember. We just don’t know. That’s the challenge here that we’re trying to figure out what happened.”

Tourists take a look at the bridge closure this afternoon while walking around town.

Just prior to the media briefing at the district office, Muskoka councillors were putting the finalizing touches to its 2025 budget, in which  a $2 million contingency fund had already been set aside for planned Silver Bridge repairs.

A final budget figure will be revealed next week.

Lehman said he expects more than that amount will be likely be needed once a final assessment and recommendation is done in about a month.

The province has helped fund other bridge projects in Muskoka before, said Lehman, and likely would do the same with this project.

Meanwhile, Lehman said the district tax hike is likely to be between 4.3 and 4.7 per cent — or “about $14” he said.”

Mayor Maloney — wearing a sweatshirt with the town’s logo with the bridge on it — called the nearly hundred-year-old Silver Bridge a Bracebridge icon and as recognizable for the town as Santa’s Village.

Painting and photos of it are everywhere.

He said the town and district would work together to ensure better traffic flow around the Heart of Muskoka community as it prepares for its popular Fire and Ice winterfest, after problems connecting water mains on Taylor Road this fall that significantly disrupted and congested traffic.

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