Gellatly Road attracts locals and tourists looking to access beaches, parks, and multi-use walking and cycling paths. Located just south of Flying Horse Drive and directly north of the West Kelowna Yacht Club, the Gellatly Road Bridge spans over Powers Creek and provides critical access to amenities like the yacht club, the Gellatly Bay Boat Launch, and the Cove Lakeside Resort.

The existing bridge was nearing the end of its service life and challenged by significant corrosion and debris damage, localized areas of rotting timber, and an imposed 40-tonne load limit. The structure had been impacted by high stream flow and aggradation of debris and sediment beneath the bridge during spring freshet events, resulting in numerous temporary bridge closures due to high water levels. It was determined that a bridge replacement would provide the best long-term solution and the existing pedestrian bridge adjacent to the roadway bridge would be raised to match the profile of the new roadway and bridge.

Several key factors were considered and addressed to ensure the successful delivery of this Project including meeting the hydraulic and highly sensitive environmental requirements for Powers Creek to limit the impacts of future flood events, maintaining nearby pedestrian and vehicle accesses and intersections during and after construction, managing First Nations consultations, and delivering the project in two separate phases while on a tight schedule to limit in stream work outside of the fisheries timing window.

From developing design concepts for the new bridge to providing construction services for the existing bridge replacement, Stantec provided a full suite of services including bridge engineering, roadway design, environmental, geotechnical, hydrotechnical, survey, and project management.

The new bridge, designed with a 75-year service life, will define the route for a safe, reliable, and convenient connection in the West Kelowna community for years to come.

During the freshet events of 2017 and 2018, the City called upon Stantec to provide professional services during their emergency flood response activities. Stantec utilized local knowledge of the bridge site acquired through the response works and previous inspection activities to efficiently identify key issues and constraints during the bridge replacement conceptual planning.

During the Concept Design Phase, we completed a site topographic survey, geotechnical and hydrotechnical investigations, traffic management review, environmental review, identified potential utility and property impacts, and carried out constructability reviews. This helped inform and develop feasible bridge and roadway design concepts to optimize solutions that benefited all disciplines involved and obtain the best-value solution for the bridge replacement, while maintaining the local amenities and character of this lakefront community.

Stantec developed a detailed design of the bridge and roadway, incorporating inputs from all disciplines and local stakeholders. This included a piled bridge foundation to increase resiliency against future flooding, a raised roadway profile to achieve the necessary clearance beneath the new bridge, and a slightly longer clear span bridge with a slender superstructure to maximize hydrotechnical conveyance capacity through the structure and reduce the impact on local existing accesses.

The new bridge and roadway provides an aesthetically-pleasing, more-resilient bridge that will mitigate impact from future flooding to Powers Creek, adjacent properties, and local accesses. Fast track construction was facilitated in off peak months and in two separate phases, minimizing traffic impacts and achieving local environmental work windows. The new bridge is designed to carry the full BCL-625 live loading which removes the previous load restrictions through the corridor.