Ontario too slow to do critical repairs on bridges: auditor

TORONTO - The Ontario government knows too little about the condition of most bridges in the province -- which could be a big road-safety issue -- and isn't following its own rules in inspecting them, the auditor general warned Monday.

Municipalities maintain 80 per cent of the province's 14,800 bridges, but the Ontario government doesn't have the power to make sure they're inspected every two years, auditor general Jim McCarter said in his annual report.

"The province has no right of access, no ability to know how good a job the municipalities are doing on the bridges," he told reporters.

"You might recall that the Concorde bridge that collapsed in Quebec, it was a municipal bridge."

McCarter stopped short of saying the bridges posed a safety risk, but pointed out that better provincial oversight of municipally owned bridges was among the recommendations of an inquiry into the deadly bridge collapse near Montreal three years ago that killed five people.

"We didn't inspect all the bridges in Ontario," he said. "So our point was, follow your own procedures."

His report also raised doubts about the quality of bridge inspections by the province and criticized the sluggish pace of fixing provincially owned bridges that are in need of critical repairs.

Inspectors flagged 185 of the 2,800 bridges maintained by the province as being in need of repair within a year, but the government has no plans to fix one-third of them, McCarter's report found.

It also noted that even though little to no work had been done to more than 300 bridges, the latest inspections surprisingly showed an improvement in their overall conditions.

Inspectors often conducted five or more bridge inspections a day, even though a typical examination should take at least two to three hours according to ministry guidelines, it found.

One inspector examined 10 or more bridges in a single day -- a feat the inspector repeated dozens of times over a two-year period.

Inspectors are required to get close enough to critical parts of the bridge to "tap stuff with a hammer and check the bolts," which is nearly impossible to do on some major highways like the 401 without closing lanes, McCarter said.

But there have been no such lane closures for the past three years, he said.

Transportation Minister Jim Bradley disputes that claim, saying the province has closed lanes along the 401 in the past few years to inspect bridges.

"I have not counted them," he said. "I do know that there have been some -- because we've already implemented that -- and I know that we have re-inspected all of these bridges to ensure that they are safe."

An engineering firm hired by McCarter to re-inspect four bridges that had already been examined found that the government hadn't thoroughly inspected some significant parts -- such as the underside, side faces and piers -- because of traffic.

"Over time, basically concrete will delaminate -- basically crack and it'll fall off," McCarter said.

"You can imagine what happens when a piece of concrete falls on a windshield on a 16-lane highway, cars going down the highway at 100 kilometres an hour."

Provincial inspectors have voiced frustration in not being able to gain adequate access to perform thorough inspections of larger bridges, he noted in his report.

The problem is "particularly serious" in the Toronto area, where there are more than 660 bridges on the 400 series highways, half of which are 40 years or older, the report noted.

"Having only limited access to bridges means inspectors may be forced to leave some elements uninspected, or to estimate the condition of some elements from afar, which increases the risk of inaccurately assessing their condition," he wrote in the report.

Bradley said the province scheduled 75 lane closures in the Greater Toronto Area this year and will do more next year.

"I know we're going to get flak from the public, but so be it," he said. "When you close lanes, they don't like it ... well, we have the auditor on our side now when we tell people why we're closing the lanes."

Given the tragedy in Quebec, taxpayers will be "mortified" to learn about the lack of oversight of Ontario's bridges, said Opposition Leader Tim Hudak.

"I mean, these are the basics," he said.

"Taxpayers send an awful lot of money to Queen's Park. They send more money each and every year ... They're going to be very upset that those dollars aren't going to core services like keeping our bridges safe."

The cost of fixing bridges in fair or poor condition over the next five years will cost about $2.2 billion, according to government estimates.

But the government has only committed $1.4 billion for the work, leaving a shortfall of $800 million, McCarter noted in his report.

About 76 per cent of the 2,800 bridges owned by the province were in good condition, while 17 per cent require work within five years.

His report also slammed the province for dinging motorists who use electronic kiosks for driver and vehicle registration.

The government should offer discounts for providing services electronically, but is instead charging a $1 "convenience" fee when motorists use the kiosks.