Based in Montreal, Quebec, Marie-Claude Dumas is WSP in Canada’s President and Chief Executive Officer. Since joining WSP in January 2020, Ms. Dumas has served as Global Director, Major Projects and Programs/Executive Market Leader – Quebec, working closely with our Global and Canadian operations and leadership teams. A member of the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec, Ms. Dumas brings a proven track record as a global engineering and construction executive with over 20 years of multi-disciplinary management and consulting experience acquired with several multinationals.

Mr. Tony Wing, P. Eng., Senior Consultant with WSP, has devoted his whole career, spanning over 39 years, to the consulting sector. Most of his experience has been associated with the project management, planning, design and construction of bridges, station buildings, tunnels and structures for transportation projects. His international experience includes large budget, planning, environmental assessment, evaluation, inspection, contract administration, and construction supervision projects for several international bridge authorities and the $15B East-West Motorway in Algeria. Mr. Wing’s projects have won Canadian Consulting Engineering Awards of Excellence (Bay of Quinte Skyway Pier Replacement), award of Merit (Place d’Orleans Transitway Station) amongst others. He has presented papers on numerous occasions at several major international bridge conferences. Later in his career, as V.P. Commercial and Risk and a member of WSP’s Legal Affairs and Risk Management Team, he undertook the review and negotiations of engineering service agreements, participated in dispute resolutions, claims and litigation, and managed WSP’s Risk Committee. In addition, he was actively involved in independent constructability and peer reviews, risk assessment and risk management on major projects undertaken by the firm.

Dr. Jianping Jiang is the National Practice Leader for Bridges and Civil Structures with WSP in Canada. He is responsible for the firm’s Bridge Engineering Practice in Canada. He has published over 47 technical papers in international journals and conference proceedings. He has successfully completed many challenging bridge projects for both public and private sector clients, ranging from less than one million to over hundreds of millions in capital costs. He has designed and inspected various types of bridges including highway, railway, LRT, and pedestrian bridges in British Columbia, Alberta and overseas. Dr. Jianping is an expert and industry leader in bridge seismic analysis and design, complex bridge projects, and design-build and P3 delivery.

DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF HIGHWAY 29 REALIGNMENT BRIDGES FOR BC HYDRO’S SITE C CLEAN ENERGY PROJECT

BC Hydro’s Site C Clean Energy Project is to build a third dam and hydroelectric generating station on the Peace River in northern British Columbia, Canada. When completed, it will provide 1,100 megawatts (MW) of capacity and produce about 5,100 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity each year — enough energy to power the equivalent of about 450,000 homes per year. The realignment of six segments of Highway 29 over a total distance of 30 kilometers is one of the key components of the project. Highway 29 realignment requires the design and construction of five new bridge crossings, ranging in length from 150 m to 1050 m, over a wide range of valleys and channels of the Peace River tributaries where various geohazards were identified including rare extreme landslide events that could generate fast-moving waves in the reservoir impinging large forces on bridges. A performance-based approach was used in the design of bridge structures under Landslide Generated Wave (LGW) impact loading. Bridges close to the dam have their decks elevated more than 50m above the existing ground with the tallest piers up to 47m. After being inundated by the reservoir, only about 10m of piers will extend above water level. Many bridge elements were standardized including steel plate girders, precast deck panels, hollow pier columns, pile foundations, bearings, and joints for consistency among all bridges on the project.

Emerging Trends in Bridge Design

WSP's Jianping Jiang, National Practice Leader, Bridges and Civil Structures, and Keith Holmes, Director of Bridges for BC/Yukon, recently provided their thoughts on the evolving trends impacting bridge development for an article published in ReNew Canada. Read Now

Eric Peissel is Global Director, Transport and Infrastructure Networks at WSP. He has over 20 years of experience in transportation having worked across Canada, in the USA and Internationally. In his current role he is responsible for setting strategic direction, global client management, coordination, and delivery for the 22,000 Transport and Infrastructure staff globally. The T&I team has staff across multiple sectors including: highways, bridges, aviation, major projects, ports and marine, rail and transit, water, stormwater, urban development and planning and advisory.

Eric Peissel’s background is in transportation planning having headed the planning and preliminary design components of numerous billion-dollar projects. This includes significant transit projects in the BRT, LRT, Heavy Rail and Commuter Rail sectors. He has also led the pursuit and delivery of large complex design-build and PPP projects in transit and highways.

Eric Peissel was also a guest lecturer in Transportation Planning at McGill’s School of Urban Planning, as well as having lectured at the University of Waterloo, University of Montreal and University of Quebec at Montreal.