With the opening of the Rotary Millennium Bridge already months behind schedule, a new snag in the design is causing further problems for the City of Whitehorse.

Paving has already been done on the bridge, with the grand opening set for later this month.

However, late Friday morning, dozens of people gathered at the site to demonstrate the fact it's not going to be completely accessible to those with disabilities. That's something which is unacceptable, considering the theme behind the Millennium Trail in the first place, said George Green, who co-chairs the Yukon Council on Disability (YCD).

'The theme for the trail from the beginning was accessibility to all,'' Green said in an interview Friday.

'Accessibility was a huge issue. And (the bridge) isn't for somebody who has a serious accessibility disability.

'And it's not just people in wheelchairs, but seniors, people with canes and mothers with strollers, too.'

The problem is with the final 15 metres of the bridge, which connects the Riverdale and downtown ends of the trail, said Green.

When the plans for the bridge initially began, YCD was a partner in the project, along with the city and Yukon Energy.

They were bumped out when the Rotary Club came in to help out with the costs and selling of planks. But, said Green, they left with the understanding that the grade of the bridge would not exceed 3.8 per cent.

'We did our research and told them we thought it would be OK,' said Len Slann, the other co-chair of YCD.

What the city didn't mention, said Green and Slann, was that 3.8 was the average.

The final couple of metres of the bridge are in excess of a six-per-cent grade, which is too much for anyone with limited accessibility to handle, they say.

On Friday, city engineer Wayne Tuck and several others at the gathering near the bridge sat in a wheelchair and tried to go up the steep side of the bridge.

While they were able to do it, most of them found it strenuous, said Green, and they have more muscle than the majority of people with accessibility disabilities.

'Those guys were the fairly fit type,' stated Green. Coming back down the bridge from the other side after the climb would be like 'a runaway train,' he said.

Green said they've been trying to tell the city for months that there was a problem and the city just wasn't listening.

'When we approached the city two months ago, because we realized they had made divisions in the plans without consulting us, we anticipated some problems,' said Green.

'But they wouldn't even admit there was a problem and they basically told us to get lost, which was a different attitude than they had previously taken.

'Finally, we met with them two weeks ago at the bridge. By that time, the paving had been done and it was very easy to see there was a problem.

'But how do you find a solution to a problem when there isn't even an agreement there is one?'

YCD is being told by the city that getting rid of the higher grade would cost too much money now, so it's not possible.

Green admits it would cost a lot to fix it now, when it's 99 per cent finished. However, he said, the city 'turned it into a money issue,' since it wouldn't have cost nearly as much two months ago, when YCD first approached them.

'Now it's been five years of planning and developing and a lot of effort by a lot of people, especially the volunteers, and we've got those damn 15 metres at the end now,' said Green. 'That's unacceptable.'

If the city had listened to them months ago, said Slann, crews could have easily levelled the banks and taken some time in the design phase. He said it would have been very easy for the city to say no grades above 3.8 per cent were allowed, but officials didn't.

'I really feel they just didn't do anything,' he stated. 'They just left it up to the designers. I really don't think they did their due research.'

YDC is asking the city to build a sub-deck beneath one end of the bridge, raising the last few metres. They insisted they don't want to fight with the city, just fix the problem.

Carl McCready, YDC's executive director, said the extra work the city may be faced with, if they decide to undertake it, will be a testament to 'lack of foresight, lack of consultation and lack of planning with people with disabilities.'

Tuck said in an interview this afternoon that from the research he's done, the bridge meets all trail guidelines.

'The U.S. Department of Transportation has reasonable trail guidelines and it meets those,' said Tuck.

'The National Building Code doesn't really apply to this, but (the Millennium Bridge) also meets those.

'(The code) shows grades up to 10, per cent and our highest grade is at just about six per cent, and that's only for the last few feet.'

U.S. guidelines do say to try for a grade of five per cent, conceded Tuck, but also say that if designers can't reach that, it's not unreasonable to go a bit higher.

'They identified that grades up to eight per cent were acceptable.'

Tuck also pointed out that there are sections of the Millennium Trail that have grades which are higher than those on the bridge, and for longer sections, and the city hasn't received any complaints about the trail.

'We used (the trail) to go by when planning the bridge, too,' he said.

The planning and designing of the bridge has been going on since 2003, he noted.

In the original design, the city had planned for a three-span (three separate pieces) bridge with two tiers in the water, which would have seen grades between three and four per cent.

But in January 2004, there was concern raised by local canoe and kayak groups, among other people, as to the piers in the water.

So the city applied to Transport Canada to change the three-span bridge to a clear-span design, without any tiers. That meant the design had to be changed to a cambre, or curved bridge. The grade then changed to a variety of slopes, said Tuck.

In February 2004, the city had a meeting with everyone involved, he said, and submitted the new bridge application to the Yukon Territory Water Board for approval.

'So it's been this way for well over a year.'

When YCD came to him two months ago, Tuck said, it was too late. The bridge was already being built, with the pieces sitting there waiting to be put together.

Tuck plans to make a presentation to city council this evening to answer the concerns being raised over the bridge.

After that, he said, it will be up to council on whether any changes are made.