The City of Ottawa is moving up repairs to two sections of Highway 174 near the site of a culvert collapse earlier this month.
In a memo to councillors, city manager Kent Kirkpatrick said Friday two culverts crossing the highway west of the Montreal Road exit and near the Orleans Boulevard exit would now be re-lined this winter.
The culvert near Montreal Road was set to be repaired sometime in the next two years.
A city study, which began Sept. 12, found 45 culverts with a diameter of one to three metres seen as nearing the end of their service lives.
Seventeen of those 45 culverts are in “critical locations” - under major transportation corridors such as Highways 174 and 417 and the Transitway.
Those culverts underwent a visual inspection and were found to be in fair to poor condition, Kirkpatrick said in the memo.
They’re set to be renewed in the next five to ten years.
Kirkpatrick also said a section of culvert that collapsed under Highway 174 at the Jeanne D’Arc off-ramp Sept. 4 wasn’t older than other culverts, as had been originally thought.
Both culverts under the westbound and eastbound lanes were installed in the mid 1970s, but the eastbound section that collapsed was made of non-galvanized steel.
That culvert deteriorated faster than the westbound one, which was galvanized steel.
The memo said a contract for the independent review of the Sept. 4 collapse, which swallowed a car and caused heavy traffic backups, will be awarded by Oct. 10.
