Construction of the new bridge across the Cataraqui River is running on schedule despite disruptions from COVID-19 protocols, the bridge’s project manager said.

James Scheer, project manager for Kiewit, and city officials led the local media on a tour of the bridge’s construction status on Thursday morning.

Scheer has worked on bridge projects all over North America, including the Port Mann Bridge between Surrey and Coquitlam, B.C., near Vancouver, which was completed in 2012.

When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in March, the construction crew was tasked with keeping the project on time as well as safe for all workers.

“The City of Kingston has designated the third crossing as an essential service,” Scheer said. “Our workers are very safety-minded and they’ve embraced these protocols that are in place.”

Most of the 50 workers on the project are local, hired from Kingston union halls, Scheer said.

“Without our workers’ dedication to these safety protocols, there’s no way we would have been able to maintain our schedule over the past five months. We’ve been able to keep our critical path moving forward through this time,” he said. “COVID has been an ever-evolving process and we’ve all kind of went through this.

“At the beginning, we were a little bit confused about what the plan was, but with the resources our company has, we were able to develop some pretty good plans and we were able to start with a rough draft and were able to work our way through it that met the needs specifically for our jobs.”

Just over seven months into the construction process, crews have almost completed a temporary causeway — made of locally sourced gravel — from the foot of John Counter Boulevard on the west side of the river to Gore Road on the east side.

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