The first weekend of October is set to see one of the Halifax Harbour bridges shut down. The Macdonald Bridge is slated to close Friday evening to remove large pieces of equipment used during previous bridgework. With the Robie Street ramp off the MacKay closed and a number of events planned for the weekend, Halifax Harbour Bridges spokesperson Steve Proctor admits this is not the best time to close the Macdonald. “Unfortunately, we have no choice. We looked at the best weekend that we could find. There was no good day to close a bridge, so we worked out the best of the worst days and that was this weekend,” he says. Some of the weekend events include a Halifax Tides game on Saturday, the Wine Fair, Halifax Fall Home Show, Bluenose Ghost Festival, and the CIBC’s Run for the Cure. “Because it’s such an important part of many people’s lives, we are very confident that our supporters, our runners, our walkers will all be factoring in some of the delays into their arrival,” says Heather Mulligan, the senior advocacy manager for the Canadian Cancer Society. Motorists are ready. “It’s going to be an inconvenience because of length of travel time,” David LeBlanc says. With the Macdonald closed, extra effort will be made to keep the MacKay running as smooth as possible. “There’ll be extra tow truck coverage, and we have more bridge patrol, and we also have the operation centre which has 120 cameras looking at the bridge on an ongoing basis,” Proctor says. There’s an added complexity to this weekend’s bridge closure, that’s because it’s a complete closure that includes all pedestrian traffic. To help with getting around this weekend, people can pick up, up to four free transit passes from the offices on the Dartmouth side of the Macdonald Bridge which will be open around the clock. The Macdonald bridge will close Friday at 8 p.m. and reopen Monday morning at 5:30 a.m. For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
