Miramichi braces for bridge shutdown, again, with no bypass in the works

It's January and that means residents of Miramichi are experiencing a now-annual round of anxious speculation: will the Centennial Bridge close completely this year?

And if it does, will there be any way to avoid the traffic apocalypse that seems certain to follow?

"Every time we get to this time of year, we hear about the bridge closure potentially happening," Coun. Ryan Somers said. 

"I heard that last year. And I heard that the year before. I always look at it as 'the dreaded bridge closure,' and we are seemingly relieved when it gets pushed back another year. But the reality is that it needs to be done."

The 1.1-kilometre span across the Miramichi River, completed in 1967, is a key artery not just for the city, but for all traffic moving between northeast New Brunswick and the southern part of the province. 

About 13,700 vehicles used it daily in 2023, according the province.

Closing it to upgrade the driving surface — part of an overhaul announced in 2015 that was supposed to be finished last year — will push all that traffic onto city streets.

The King George Highway, where most of it will go, is often congested already.

"All of the local services, fire, ambulance, school bus, mail, anything you can think of will be frozen solid," David Cadogan, a retired newspaper editor, said.

"Not only that, nothing will be able to get through here from the north shore."

Business owner Les Price said the shutdown, expected to start in May and continue until fall in each of the next three years, will undo decades of effort to turn around Miramichi's economic decline.

"If we shut down the traffic, gridlock our traffic, everything we've built over the last 25 years is gone," he said.

"You cannot close that bridge without an alternate route on the north side."

Price and Cadogan are now pushing for a last-minute, ad-hoc, Hail-Mary-pass bid to get that alternate route built — fast.