The lights on the Canadian side of the International Bridge have recently gone dark, but the bridge administration is working toward a fix.
Colored lights were installed on the bridge that spans the St. Marys River back in 2015, but the components of the lighting system is almost 35 years old, said Peter Petäinen, bridge director for the International Bridge Authority.
The lights on the Canadian side of the bridge are white and red, while on the U.S. half they are red, white and blue.
"The Canadian arch lights are being affected by a rather mundane electrical issue," said Petäinen by email on Tuesday. "Our staff are working on finding a recurring short within the aging arch wiring system that is tripping a breaker and shutting the lights off."
"The short is physically somewhere within the dozens of junction boxes on the bridge arch," he said.
Petäinen said much of the electrical systems on the bridge date back to the 1960s, the same decade the International Bridge was built. To complicate matters, the electrical systems used on the Canadian and U.S. ends are not connected because of differences in the Ontario and Michigan power grids.
Winter weather is making the issue difficult to fix in the short term.
"To make any repairs, it requires staff to climb the arch, which we only do in winter when weather and conditions will safely allow," he said.
Ageing infrastructure is also affecting the bridge cams many travellers use to gauge how busy the traffic is before making a crossing, but in this case it's a cyber security issue.
"The images were provided from selected cameras from the bridge’s security system – which was originally installed in 2005," said Petäinen. "The updated software firewall rules for the protection of the security system are preventing the website from receiving images."
The bridge cameras have been offline from public view since late summer or early fall, said Petäinen.
The Falcon Cam is operated on a different system and not affected.
"Our goal is to find an acceptable solution that offers limited images for public use for traffic management but ensures the security of the system.
Unfortunately, we do not have a timeline yet for when the cameras may be available again," said Petäinen.
He added: "we are very much looking forward to normal traffic resuming into our two communities, and nice weather so we can safely do some needed maintenance work."
