SASKATOON – Get ready for some long traffic jams around downtown Saskatoon next summer. The city plans to shut down most of University Bridge for at least four months for major repairs.

“It is going to be very, very painful,” said Mayor Don Atchison. “It was asked if it could be put off till 2017, 2018 … (but) the ramifications would be far too great for safety for the citizens of Saskatoon,” Atchison told Global News.

The repairs are estimated to cost around eight million dollars and take months to complete. During the work, the bridge will be down to one eastbound lane.

“The entire deck has to be removed, we have to remove the steel and everything else that is there, it hasn’t been worked on for some 40 years,” said Atchison, “so this is the time when it’s going to be done.”

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“That’s why we need the traffic bridge right off the bat, because after the University bridge there’s the Broadway Bridge, and then the Senator Sid Buckwold Bridge that will be done.”

Read more: Three teams short-listed to build new Saskatoon bridges

Work on the University Bridge was discussed during budget talks this week. Councillors are going through the city budget line by line, trying to find ways to reduce a tax increase that was originally pegged at 7.32 per cent.

After two days of discussions the increase has been reduced to 6.23 per cent, but council will tackle the budget again next Tuesday in the hopes of finding more savings.