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Bailey Bridge saga continues to unfold

An arbitrator will soon begin deliberations about whether the existing Bailey Bridge should be replaced by a one- or two-lane crossing.
Bailey Bridge
Cyclists and pedestrians are still able to use the Bailey Bridge, but it's been closed to vehicles since the beginning of March. The City of New Westminster is spending about $175,000 on a new temporary bridge.

An arbitrator will soon begin deliberations about whether the existing Bailey Bridge should be replaced by a one- or two-lane crossing.

The City of New Westminster is arguing that a two-lane crossing would create additional congestion and pose safety issues in the Braid and Brunette area, while Coquitlam believes a two-lane bridge is the way to go.

With Tuesday being the deadline for submissions to the arbitrator, the cities are expecting a ruling by July. It’s the latest move in the ongoing saga of the Bailey Bridge that dates back more than a decade.

In March 2002, Coquitlam completed connection of a four-lane extension of United Boulevard west of King Edward Street to the border of New Westminster and connected this extension with Braid Street. Unimpressed that Coquitlam didn’t implement measures to prevent through-traffic from coming into the Royal City, as it had previously agreed to do, New Westminster closed a gate at the municipal boundary.

Coquitlam took the matter to court and asked that the gate be reopened.

Supreme Court Justice Bruce Cohen ruled in New Westminster’s favour, saying Coquitlam hadn’t demonstrated that any harm would come from New Westminster’s decision to prohibits through access for the general public. Coquitlam appealed and Supreme Court Justice D. Bennett ordered that New Westminster open the gate. The gate has been open since October 2002.

In 2005, Transport Canada directed the city to have traffic enforcement personnel to regulation the flow of traffic across the existing railway lines at Braid and Brunette because of safety concerns. At the time, New Westminster stated that traffic volumes across the bridge had risen from 500 in 2002 (before the four-lane extension was completed in Coquitlam) to more than 13,000 daily in 2005.

Flash forward to 2010, when the federal government was prepared to make $65 million available for the United Boulevard extension portion of the North Fraser Perimeter Road. It believed there were safety and reliability benefits associated with making improvements at the single-lane Bailey Bridge and eliminating the at-grade rail and road conflicts.

TransLink, however, informed Transport Canada in 2011 that it would not be pursuing the federal funding contribution toward the United Boulevard extension project because it couldn’t find a solution that would both meet the objectives of the Asia Pacific Gateway and Corridor Initiative and get the support of the City of New Westminster.

“A preferred option was identified that did achieve the project objectives and provide significant community benefits but received little support within the New Westminster community, and without this support, TransLink was unable to move the project forward,” stated a TransLink letter in June 2011.

Although Coquitlam supported the project as a way of addressing the “longstanding bottleneck”, New Westminster opposed the project unless traffic mitigation was provided throughout the North Fraser Perimeter Road corridor that stretches from the Brunette overpass to the Queensborough Bridge.

The Bailey Bridge, which was installed in the mid 1990s, was closed to traffic temporarily in February 2013 while repairs were made.

In March 2014, the City of New Westminster closed the bridge permanently to after engineers found structural deficiencies. The city has ordered a temporary bridge, with the crossing expected to reopen mid-month.