New Westminster is encouraging TransLink to speed up plans for a new Pattullo Bridge.
TransLink has announced it’s reducing the scope of rehabilitation work on the Pattullo Bridge from 18 months to five months, by focusing on essential deck repairs and ensuring the bridge is kept operational until a replacement is complete.
In the spring, TransLink announced plans for a $100-million repair to the Pattullo Bridge that would result in one-lane traffic in each direction on weekdays, closures at night and on weekends, sidewalk closures and prohibition of heavy trucks with more than three axles. The city got to work devising traffic management plans on how to deal with the impacts on local streets.
“There was a pretty significant rehabilitation that was scheduled for next year that was going to be 18 months long, involve complete closures, have one lane in each direction for great periods of time. That plan has been revisited,” said Mayor Jonathan Cote. “I think that is a real positive for New Westminster.”
Cote said New Westminster and Surrey have shared concerns about the amount of disruption the rehabilitation project was going to have on their roads.
“We already deal with congestion. I think eliminating capacity of the Pattullo Bridge and having those types of closures would have made a difficult situation even worse in our community,” he told the Record. “The reality is the bridge is reaching the end of its life expectancy.”
Cote believes TransLink’s decision means the region has an opportunity to focus its efforts on replacing the bridge.
“TransLink indicated that within two years’ time that they will have a final decision and a final plan, but New Westminster is actually going to try and advocate for speeding that up,” he said. “Given that we already have the funding sources identified, we already have an agreement in terms of the size of the bridge from the mayors’ council, we actually think that within one year, if we put our minds to it, TransLink, Surrey and New Westminster and the provincial government should be able to resolve this one and get this project moving forward.”
The Pattullo Bridge, built in 1937, is one of the oldest crossings in Metro Vancouver.
Earlier this year, Metro Vancouver residents rejected TransLink’s plan to raise funds for transit and transportation improvements by raising the sales tax in the region by 0.5 per cent. While that decision causes some uncertainty for projects in the region, Cote said the Pattullo Bridge was supposed to be mainly funded by tolls.
“Given that the provincial government has already offered up a portion of funding that would essentially make up the funding gap, to me there is absolutely no financial reason why that project can’t go ahead right away because it does not need another funding source,” Cote said. “As long as it goes ahead as accepted in the mayor’s plan, I actually don’t see any barrier why we can’t be going ahead. Certainly, New Westminster is going to be pushing for that to go ahead as soon as possible.”
