Pattullo Bridge repair work expected to cause congestion
Drivers can expect a slow and “challenging” summer on one of the Lower Mainland’s oldest and busiest bridges, as the 79-year-old Pattullo Bridge undergoes major repairs.
The Pattullo will be completely closed from the evening of this Friday, April 29, until the morning of Monday, May 2, while crews set up for construction. Then, from May 2 until Sept. 30, the bridge will be open with a single lane in each direction, down from the usual two lanes each way.
A notice on the B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure website advises commuters: “You can still use the bridge, but obviously this will impact your travel times and your trip planning around the Lower Mainland.”
TransLink owns and maintains the Pattullo Bridge, which connects New Westminster and Surrey across the Fraser River. In an emailed statement, TransLink spokesman Jordan Keim said: “Drivers taking the Pattullo Bridge should plan an extra 20 to 40 minutes of travel time in the morning peak period and 10 to 30 minutes in the afternoon peak period.”
The TransLink website for the Pattullo Bridge rehabilitation project says: “We know this will be a challenging five months for commuters, and we’re here to help you get where you need to go.” The site highlights extra service hours on several bus routes, and six additional parking locations near New Westminster, Scott Road and Surrey Central SkyTrain stations, to “make it easier for drivers to connect to transit.”
The Pattullo will be closed to all traffic two nights a week and one weekend a month, and drivers are encouraged to check TransLink’s website for details about upcoming closures.
A statement from the transportation authority says: “This work is expected to extend the life of the bridge until a replacement is built. At this point, we expect a replacement bridge could take five to seven years to build.”
New Westminster Mayor Jonathan Cote said he has heard from concerned residents and businesses who worry that bottlenecks on the bridge could back traffic up into the city and cause “cascading negative impacts on to the local neighbourhood roads.”
It’s the best time of the year for such a project, Cote said, because traffic on Metro Vancouver’s major road networks tends to decrease “quite significantly” over the summer months.