$25M berm to be built around Calgary Zoo island

The road through the Calgary Zoo will be closed for almost a year and a half while the city builds a protective flood berm around the island.

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The zoo suffered $50 million in damage during the 2013 flood.

So the city has agreed to pay $25 million to construct thebermand a new pumping system to protect the popular downtown Calgary attraction from a similar disaster in the future.

Zoo Road will close in December as work gets underway, and remain out of service until June 2017. However it will reopen temporarily for next summer's tourist season in July and August.

AreaCoun.Gian-CarloCarrasays he expects it will be a minor inconvenience for traffic.

"It'snice to have a connection to Inglewood and it's nice-to-have connection to the zoo island and the parking lot there and St. Patrick's Island. But it's not a critical link in the city's road connectivity," he said.

"It experiences a tremendous amount of commuter traffic one time of the day on the evening drive home as opposed to the morning rush because it's just not conveniently located for that and you know, those cars will find other routes as they always do."

The bridge at 12th Street will stay open during construction.

But that century-old span will be torn down once it is replaced by a new bridge slated to be erected just west of it. The BainesBridge at Memorial Drive will also remain open.

Construction on that $19-million project will start in the spring and be finished by 2017.