Cable collars will clear snow from the Alex Fraser
Counter-flow lane with movable barrier system also being added to busy span
The province hopes adding a snowclearing system to the Alex Fraser Bridge’s cables will prevent snow and ice buildup like that which forced the bridge to close for 18 hours last winter.
A tender was issued for the $5-million project, which involves installing cable collars like those found on the Port Mann Bridge, on Wednesday and will close in mid-September. The collars are expected to be in place by the end of December.
This winter was the first time the Alex Fraser Bridge was closed due to falling snow and ice. In addition to being closed completely for 18 hours, there was also one northbound-only closure of four hours, and one southbound closure of 31/2 hours.
The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure spent between $1.1 million and $1.3 million to remove snow and ice from the Alex Fraser Bridge this winter, which included applying de-icing to beams and using a helicopter to blow ice off the cables.
The Port Mann Bridge’s cable-collar system was installed in 2013.
There are 288 cables on the Port Mann Bridge, each of which holds 30 chain collars.
The collars are released remotely to slide down the cables and remove snow and ice, and rope-access technicians manually reload the collars after they have been used.
The Alex Fraser Bridge system will be entirely manually operated from the bridge “to ensure effectiveness.”
“Last winter, snow and ice on the Alex Fraser Bridge’s cables forced several closures, which inconvenienced thousands of commuters,” Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Claire Trevena said in a news release.
“Adding a cable-collar system to clear snow will improve the reliability of the bridge.”
The same contract will include initial work on a project to improve the capacity of the Alex Fraser Bridge by adding a counter-flow lane, taking the bridge from six lanes to seven.
That project was announced in January.
The plan is to use a movable barrier system similar to one installed on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge two years ago.
It consists of steel barriers filled with concrete that are moved by a vehicle that runs over the barrier and shifts it from one side of a lane to the other, like a zipper.
The initial work involves replacing the existing fixed-median barrier with a temporary concrete median barrier.
The ministry is in the process of procuring the movable-barrier system, and additional work to complete the project will be tendered in the fall.
The ministry said the new lane is expected to be operational in the fall of 2018, which is later than was projected in January.
At the initial announcement it was expected that the project would go to tender this spring and the lane would be ready in spring 2018.
The project is expected to cost $70 million, almost $34 million of which will come from the federal government.
“Many Delta residents rely heavily on the Alex Fraser Bridge,” Delta North MLA Ravi Kahlon said.
“The extra lane, with its counter-flow barrier system, will save commuters valuable time each day.”