As work continues on the rehab of the Pattullo Bridge, another closure is in store for the span.
The bridge, which has been cut down to one lane in each direction since the beginning of May, will be closed to all traffic from 8 p.m. on Friday, May 27 until 5 a.m. on Monday. As part of the work that’s running until the beginning of October, the bridge will be closed to all traffic two nights a week and one weekend a month to give crews additional time and space to get work done as quickly as possible.
In order to carry out rehabilitation work on the deck of the Pattullo Bridge, several closures are planned for the span until early October.
The City of New Westminster has been monitoring traffic impacts on local neighbourhoods as a result of work being done on the Pattullo Bridge.
“We are seeing about 30,000 less vehicles a day using the Pattullo Bridge,” said Lisa Leblanc, the city’s transportation manager. “Although there is still queuing that is happening because it’s only one lane in each direction, there is actually less traffic volume going through the city.”
Leblanc said the city has received some very positive feedback from residents about the traffic management initiatives put in place to manage motorists who are trying to rat run through neighbourhoods. Traffic control people will continue to monitor the situation.
“We will have some traffic counts done and we are going to be reviewing data to see how things have changed from before the rehabilitation work, then we are going to regroup and decide if we continue on the way we have been or if we need to make some modifications or what we do next,” she said. “So it’s a decision week this week with what happens from this point forward.”
TransLink predicted 60 per cent of motorists would continue to use the Pattullo Bridge, and that’s proven to be correct, Leblanc said.
“Our strategy has been to reinforce the existing regulations,” she said. “We have been trying not to introduce anything new. Having said that, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that when we regroup this week if we are seeing things happen because of shortcutting traffic that warrants a short-term restriction that isn’t currently in place we are not going to rule that out.”
Because New Westminster is such a “constrained” city, Leblanc said that when traffic is pinched in one location, something generally happens elsewhere in the traffic network.
“But for the most part, we haven’t seen the significant queuing that was modelled initially,” she added. “We have seen some queuing and we have seen enough to warrant having traffic control people out and doing some monitoring, but it isn’t as bad as what was predicted.
