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Almost two-thirds of North Shore readers say a new bridge is needed

Current bridges are old and can't handle traffic volumes, readers said
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An uncommonly light traffic day on the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge in May 2021. | Paul McGrath / North Shore News

About two-thirds of local readers say a new bridge crossing connecting the North Shore to the rest of Metro Vancouver is needed.

That's probably not surprising to anyone who's spent time stuck in traffic gridlock on the North Shore at rush hour, or after an accident has closed one of the two bridges for a period of time.

Recently, Liberal leader Kevin Falcon told members of a media roundtable a new bridge is needed post haste to replace the 60-year Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing, which he described as "literally starting to fall apart."

Readers (and drivers) in North and West Vancouver agree.

Over 65 per cent of local readers who answered a recent North Shore News poll on the topic said a new bridge crossing is needed as the existing bridges are old and not capable of carrying today's traffic volumes.

A number of North Shore News readers also wrote letters and took to social media to vent their frustrations over the current bridge traffic gridlock.

"Put a tunnel for rail and road under Burrard inlet from waterfront up Lonsdale to Highway 1 and extend the Canada line. This would alleviate bridge traffic enormously," wrote one reader on Twitter.

"The bridge is a major problem," another pointed out, adding North Shore bridges take traffic from the Sea-to-Sky communities and drivers coming in to the Vancouver area from the BC Ferries terminal at Horseshoe Bay, not just from residents of North and West Vancouver.

Less than 18 per cent of local readers disagreed with that, saying a new bridge would be too expensive and not solve traffic problems. A similar number – less than 18 per cent – indicated they'd need more information to have an informed opinion on the topic.

The North Shore News polled 1,015 North Shore News readers and asked the question: Is it a good idea to build another bridge crossing to the North Shore and/or replace the Second Narrows?

The poll ran from Jan. 17 to Jan. 23 on our website. Of the 1,015 votes, we can determine that 397 are from within the community. The full results are as follows:

Yes. The existing bridges are old and not sufficient to carry current traffic volumes. The North Shore is overdue. 65.24% local, 64.24% total    
No. Building a bridge would be too expensive and not solve traffic gridlock. 17.88% local, 17.93% total    
I'm not sure. I would need more information to have an informed opinion. 16.62% local, 17.83% total    
  Local   Total

Results are based on an online study of adult North Shore News readers that are located in North Shore. The margin of error which measures sample variability is +/- 3.07%, 19 times out of 20.

North Shore News uses a variety of techniques to capture data, detect and prevent fraudulent votes, detect and prevent robots, and filter out non-local and duplicate votes.

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