Contract to address failing Claremont access walls expected to be awarded soon

The city expects to soon hire a contractor to start removing failing sections of the Claremont Access retaining wall.

The tender for that job - expected to cost $4.5 million - was scheduled to close Wednesday, engineering director Jackie Kennedy told council.

Once that contract is awarded, the hope is to start the job in coming weeks and reopen the now-closed Mountain-climbing road in the months ahead," Kennedy said.

A new bulge in the steel wall, indicative of a potential failure of certain sections," prompted the temporary emergency closure of downbound lanes in early March.

Residents have been redirected to other accesses to reach the lower city, which dispersed traffic without too much trouble," said Mike Field, acting transportation director, earlier this month.

But residents of the east Mountain are just queued up and backed up with a lot of frustration," Coun. Tom Jackson said Wednesday, asking if a permanent closure was in the cards.

All accesses across the city are really critical corridors, and any concept of removal an access from the system needs to be looked at very, very carefully," Field responded. So there's no plans in this moment to remove any accesses."

Teviah Moro is a reporter at The Spectator. tmoro@thespec.com