A noisy bridge forced OC Transpo to abandon a Transitway detour in Westboro and instead funnel buses down Richmond Road on Thursday.

The temporary Bailey bridge, located at the north end of Roosevelt Avenue on the Scott Street extension, was meant to carry bus traffic from Westboro to Dominion stations during Stage 2 LRT construction. It opened Sunday morning.

In a blog post Thursday morning, Coun. Jeff Leiper said he was on the first bus to cross the bridge and immediately noticed "significant noise ... particularly when [buses] pass over the lip separating the bridge's span from the roadway."

Leiper told CBC that for people living near the bridge, the noise is unacceptable.

"For these residents here it's like having a thunder clap right outside your window, around the clock. At peak hour when hundreds of buses are coming through in an hour, it's a cacophony of very jarring sound," Leiper said, pointing to nearby homes on Workman, Winston and Roosevelt avenues.

He said while the detour has been discussed for years and a sound barrier was installed alongside the bridge, this particular disturbance was a surprise.

"We were anticipating things like the engine noise and the brake noise and the exhaust noise," he said. "I'm not sure who, if anyone, anticipated the sound of the wheels hitting a steel lip."

Leiper said there's also a rumbling noise as buses pass over the bridge.

Late Thursday afternoon, buses resumed crossing the bridge, but Leiper said efforts to address the noise seemed inadequate.

People living near the temporary bridge confirmed the noise that began Sunday morning was jarring.

"At first I thought it was thundering," said Joann Michels, who's lived nearby for 31 years. "I had all my windows closed because it was so hot earlier in the week, then when I opened them up I thought, oh no, that's that bridge." 

Khalil Merhi, who's lived nearby for nine years, said he and his wife had to move bedrooms to get away from the "unbearable" noise.

"I lived in Beruit, so it reminded me of a bomb, like boom! It was just like, what the heck?" Merhi said. "I think the bus driver, if they were living here, they'd complain about the driving."

Leiper said he has reached out to the LRT team "to alert them to the very jarring noise being produced," and said his office has remained "in frequent contact" over the past several days. CBC News has asked the city for more information about the bridge, but has yet to receive a response.

"The neighbourhood cannot be asked to tolerate this for the several years construction will take, and I fully support the decision to implement the detour away from the bridge," he wrote in his blog post.

The decision to reroute the buses was made Wednesday evening, Leiper said.

It's not known how long the detour will remain in place, nor what solutions are available, Leiper said.

"It will likely be several days before I can begin communicating answers. In the meantime, however, adjacent neighbours will be able to sleep."

For now, westbound buses will turn from Scott onto Churchill Avenue, then onto Richmond. Eastbound buses will do the opposite.

"We'll only know what the effect of adding buses back into the mix will have," Leiper wrote. "Based on my observations Wednesday afternoon, PM peak traffic is moving well now, and I hope the effect of adding buses staggered by the Churchill light won't have too great an impact, but time will tell."

Because the detour will bypass Dominion station, Leiper has asked OC Transpo to maintain some service at Richmond and Roosevelt.

Leiper said for both local residents and OC Transpo passengers who are now facing detours as they travel through his ward, it's critical that a solution be found soon.

"At this point I don't know what the timelines are, and that's obviously one of my most urgent questions," he said.

Leiper warned that diverting buses "isn't going to be sustainable for the duration of LRT construction," and said it's "critical" that the bridge problem be addressed as quickly as possible.

"I think it's probably solvable with an engineering solution, but it's going to take some time. I was very hopeful early in the week that they might be able to fix it quickly. I'm very glad that when OC Transpo realized the fix is not going to be quick that they shut it down, they detoured the buses."

Merhi said he and his neighbours are willing to put up with the construction and disruption for a few years, but not the noise.

"I don't mind this if they fix the noise," he said. "Fix it. Simple as that."

After spending more than a decade covering Ottawa city hall for CBC, Alistair Steele is now a feature writer and digital copy editor at cbc.ca/ottawa.

With files from Alexander Behne and Jen Beard

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