re: Timiscaming Dam Bridge of Quebec Replacement Project

Good evening to whom it may concern,

over the last 2 years as you are probably aware a temporary fix on the dam was done which took an enormous amount of time, and from external perspective, poorly planned and executed and to make things worse right from the start the local people including myself, trucking companies, town and company officials etc were voicing our opinions that there were real concerns about the east end exit of the bridge dam restricting the movement of large vehicles and creating a real safety concern for pedestrians, light vehicles and others. Our concerns were completely ignored. Trucking companies damaged tires, rims, axles over an extended period. Finally, some work was done to correct the turning radius. Add to this putting down asphalt on a wood runway which ended up cracking and creating majors holes in the bridge until again finally someone decided to take all the asphalt off. 

So this is the experience the local folks, truckers etc  had with the temporary repairs on the dam-bridge. So just glad nobody got hurt seriously but just the same lots of material damages and frustration to go allong with it. Having said all of this, if this exercise of gathering comments on a proposed dam-bridge replacement is just that an exercise to get the local people inputs shared so they can feel good about it, ... and it gets ignore again, then stop wasting people's time.

Let me present myself, my name is Alain King , Wood Procurement Manager for Ryam's Temiscaming site. We have numerous suppliers that go across those dams daily, delivering biomass, wood chips, pulp wood logs to the Temiscaming mills, and yes I was the one fielding many of the calls from the trucking companies that were reporting damages created by the last ill-planned project.

Main points to guarantee a successfully execution:

1. wide width runway on the dam with zero safety issue with two Log trucks meeting on dam along with pedestrians, cyclists , snowmobilers lane on the side.
2. Approaches at each end of the dam that do not encroaches on the road right of way. Truckers should not have to turn on a sidewalk to make the bridge. That's poor road design.
3.  Dam location far enough from the mill main entrance bridge to allow for tractor-trailers to park between the dam exit to the main mill entrance and without restricting normal light vehicle traffic. Count on a least 4+ rigs waiting on the side. So that means they need enough of a radius at the bridge exit to turn south and park safety without having to reposition the rigs on the street to park out of traffic lane.
4. Timing and proper organization. Work needs to be completed in the shortest amount of time without limiting traffic to a one lane scenario like we experienced for way too long. 

Below are my contacts, feel free to call me to discuss. 

Alain King

Directeur régional, Gestion de la Fibre

Regional Manager, Fiber Management