Winnipeggers use more than 100 bridges to get in and out of the downtown core. But like much of Canada’s municipal infrastructure, the city’s bridges are aging.

A few of them are more than a century old, and the price to keep them up and running is staggering.

City Councilor Russ Wyatt says Winnipeg spends up to $100 million a year to keep its bridges in good condition.

“We as a city will sacrifice other infrastructure repairs just to keep our bridges open and going,” he says.

Regular wear and tear, coupled with a harsh northern climate, take a heavy toll on the bridges.

Dr. Amir Fam, a civil engineering professor at Queen’s University, is currently designing new bridge technologies, which will last longer in a Canadian climate and be easier to maintain in the long term. This, he says, will make it easier on governments tasked with the upkeep of the structures over time.

Dr. Fam’s first project was the 14-year-old Taylor Bridge in Headingley, Mb., just outside of Winnipeg. Known as a “smart bridge,” the Taylor was reinforced with non-rusting composite materials instead of steel, and is being monitored with sensors buried deep inside.

Since composite materials such as fibreglass and carbon fibres are more expensive than steel, Dr. Fam says we won’t see many “smart bridges” around Canada. With public safety in mind, the technologies must also be tested rigorously before engineers build them in real bridges.

But more than a decade on, the Taylor Bridge is validating many of the engineers’ early hypotheses of the new technologies. As Dr. Fam says, “there is no problem so far.”