Dear Editor,
With all due respect to Christina Myers (Confessions from a Pattullo commuter, In My Opinion, The Record, May 16), there is a lot more at stake over the bridge issue than just commuting from North Surrey to Burnaby. As I see it, there are three components to this question: 1. Commuting to/from Vancouver and Burnaby to South of Fraser. 2. Transport of goods, e.g. truck traffic. 3. Local traffic (sort of what Ms. Myers does, but also local shopping, visiting, etc.)
We have to ask ourselves: what modes serve each of these best? 1. Commuting. Most commuters are point-to-point trips that can be done efficiently by transit if it is conveniently located. 2. Goods. It is just as easy to put containers on railcars or barges as on trucks (possibly at some sacrifice of speed over the trip distance). 3. Local. Individual vehicles, whether electric, gas or pedal-powered, are most useful here.
Now TransLink seems focused on a six-lane bridge, mainly because they have already brought the so-called South Fraser Perimeter Road to the Scott Road/ King George area at the south end of the Pattullo. Such truck traffic is for moving containers from Delta Port inland, avoiding Vancouver.
This new bridge would then carry the trucks into New West and (mainly) on Brunette to Highway 1, whence onward to CPR at Pitt Meadows container yard, or to CNR at Port Mann.
Once this massive bridge is in place, commuters and local users are free to use it (unless tolled, which is a separate discussion) in addition to the truck traffic. So this is all very well as far as it goes, but if we go back to the three original components, there are other ways of dealing with these needs.
The existing bridge could be rebuilt to extend its life another half-century or so for $200 million, says TransLink. OK, do that and reduce it to two lanes plus bike/ walking paths on each side. That takes care of 3. the local needs.
Build another bridge upstream or downstream, say four lanes, which can handle some truck and commuting (1 and 2 above). And put in place more railway capacity to carry the container traffic. Or even consider barging the cans up river.
While we're at it, there will be a redundant Port Mann Bridge soon. Why can't it be reinstalled to connect the new Prince Edward Street overpass in Coquitlam to King George Highway in Surrey? They spent millions on it a few years ago, adding a lane and fixing it up; money otherwise wasted.
TransLink tells us that 450,000 vehicles a day go through New Westminster now. What will it be like with a six-lane crossing?
Let's think about what can be done in other ways before we let them stampede us into this monster!
Colin Dover, New Westminster
