Sabo Bridge

As I’m sure you’ve heard, the Martin Olav Sabo bicycle and pedestrian bridge over Highway 55 suffered a critical failure of two of its support cables on Sunday, February 18^th.  Public works staff presented an update to Council yesterday that you can read here.

The Sabo bridge's problems disrupted traffic on Highway 55 and operations on the Hiawatha LRT for a little more than a week.  Public Works staff have responded quickly and professionally to this unexpected problem, shoring up the bridge and getting traffic and LRT service reopened as soon as possible. 

Problems with other cables and their connections to the bridge have been discovered, and the City has hired a contractor to investigate what caused these failures.  These cables are a little over five years old, and were inspected just last year and found to be in good condition.  The bridge itself is closed to bicycle and pedestrian traffic indefinitely. 

I support this important and highly visible investment in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, and I’m confident that we will be able to isolate the cause of these failures and make the repairs necessary to reopen it.  I am confident that the costs of the repairs will be covered by whichever party is found by the investigation currently underway to have caused the problems with these cables.