If you’re wondering what happened to the long-proposed Ross Street Underpass in Salmon Arm, it’s still chugging along.
The tender for construction of the underpass closed on May 5, 2021 and the city has until July 5 to award the contract.
“As you can imagine this is a very complicated project and we have to ensure that we have every detail confirmed both legally and financially,” said Rob Niewenhuizen, the city’s director of engineering and public works.
In the meantime, the city signed a construction agreement with CP Rail after it went back and forth between the city and CP.
One of the issues for the city was risk – if an accident or other situation occurred on the tracks and CP’s trains were delayed, causing a financial loss to the company, would the city be covered by insurance.
“The Subway Construction Agreement, originally drafted by CPR, has undergone thorough review by the city’s project team and has undergone several turns each from the city and CPR to get to the current form. Council was previously briefed on and accepted the outstanding risk,” stated an earlier staff report to council.
The 2020 budget listed $15.7 million for the underpass, which included $1 million from CP plus a grant of $500,000 that CP applied for on the city’s behalf.
Read more: Salmon Arm’s Ross Street underpass to go to tender but not without risk
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