Laycock Park Pedestrian Bridge, Pushing the Limits of Timber Design

Abstract

AbstractThe new Laycock Park Pedestrian Bridge, which was successfully opened in 2019, re-establishes Calgary’s North–South regional pathway and neighborhood access to Laycock Park that were disrupted by partial washout of an existing timber bridge during Calgary’s 2013 flood. The bridge project is part of a greater re-naturalization project currently being implemented by The City of Calgary (The City) for Laycock Park. The new bridge, which features durable Alaskan Yellow Cedar (AYC) glulam girders, that pushed the limits of design and fabrication possibilities at 37-m long, has a pedestrian and eco-friendly coating system and the first example of a Glass-Fibre-Reinforced Polymer (GFRP)-wrapped timber pedestrian bridge deck in Calgary. Harvested from regional renewable resources, the cedar provides the required strength, stability, and service-life for the bridge and demonstrates the usability of timber as a modern, efficient, and elegant sustainable cold climate bridge construction material. The project helps provide flood resiliency throughout the park by protecting the new bridge abutments and also the banks upstream and downstream of the bridge from erosion concerns. This was accomplished with both riprap and bioengineering bank protection solutions. This paper outlines some of the innovative design features of the project, including wood material selections, coating systems, timber reinforcements, and water-shedding details.