2 years behind schedule, the Pattullo Bridge replacement nears completion

2 week_ago 11

British Columbia

The state says the $1.637-billion task connecting Surrey and New Westminster is expected to unfastened successful autumn 2025, aft years of delays. CBC News got an exclusive circuit of the operation portion months up of the project's completion.

Province says $1.637-billion task expected to unfastened successful autumn 2025, aft years of delays

CBC News

· Posted: Jun 20, 2025 10:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours ago

Construction workers connected the tract of a ample span project.

An 80-metre spread is each that separates the main span platform from the northbound ramp of B.C.'s Pattullo Bridge replacement. High supra the Fraser River, operation crews work to link the 2 sides, 1 rebar astatine a time.

The abstraction whitethorn look vast, but technologist Wendy Itagawa says it's a relatively small conception of the bridge's 1,200-metre length.

"We're getting truly adjacent now," said Itagawa, who is the enforcement manager of the Pattullo Bridge Replacement Project. "We're installing the cables and the deck, and we'll beryllium connecting to the northbound broadside aboriginal this summer."

The task broke crushed successful 2020 and has faced years of delays, but Itagawa says it's connected way present for its autumn 2025 opening.

About 450 radical regularly enactment connected the $1.673-billion infrastructure project, which volition regenerate the aging Pattullo Bridge that connects New Westminster and Surrey.

A ample span with a spread successful the mediate and operation enactment each around.

Aging Pattullo and delays

Built successful the 1930s, the Pattullo Bridge serves astir 60,000 drivers daily. But implicit the past two decades, concerns implicit the bridge's information and integrity person mounted.

In 2016, a study presented to TransLink's committee of directors showed the bridge did not meet modern upwind and seismic information standards. The study to Metro Vancouver's transit authorization recommended the span beryllium replaced by nary aboriginal than 2024.

The state greenlit a caller span successful 2018. Two years later, in 2020, a squad of contractors collectively known arsenic the Fraser Crossing Partners was awarded a $967.5-million declaration to regenerate the bridge. Construction began that February.

WATCH | 5 years successful the making, Pattullo Bridge replacement nears completion:

New Pattullo Bridge connecting Surrey, New Westminster nears completion

After a lengthy operation period, the caller Pattullo Bridge, connecting Surrey and New Westminster, is astir finished. This caller crossing volition regenerate the existing bridge, located conscionable a fewer 100 metres away. CBC’s Jon Hernandez ascended precocious onto the span platform to observe the ongoing construction.

About a twelvemonth into construction, the opening of the span was delayed from 2023 to 2024. At the time, the authorities attributed delays to on-site investigative work and permitting holdups owed to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last year, it was delayed until autumn 2025, with officials citing inflationary pressures and planetary proviso issues. The state besides said the 167-metre span tower, the tallest of it's benignant successful B.C., took longer to physique than expected.

A pistillate successful a high-visibility vest and achromatic hard chapeau stands astatine a operation site.

New bridge, caller name

The existent Pattullo Bridge has 4 lanes of traffic. Opposing directions of postulation are divided by integrative stakes and pedestrians and cyclists stock a azygous sidewalk crossing the bridge.

Over the years, Surrey and New Westminster person been astatine likelihood implicit however galore lanes the replacement should have, with Surrey advocating for a six-lane bridge, but New Westminster wanting to support four.

The state says the replacement span volition person 4 lanes, a determination made pursuing assemblage consultation and based connected existent roadworthy web capableness limits. However, the span is wide capable to beryllium expanded into six lanes successful the future.

Construction workers enactment connected apical of a metallic structure.

There volition beryllium dedicated walking and motorcycle paths connected some sides of the bridge, on with a centre median.

And it won't stock its predecessor's namesake.

Itagawa says arsenic portion of the project's taste designation program, the bridge's caller sanction volition bespeak the Fraser River's value to section First Nations, including the Musqueam and Kwantlen nations.

The backmost of a pistillate successful a high-visibility vest and achromatic hard chapeau arsenic she points up astatine a factual partition with food etched into it.

Indigenous artwork

The task volition besides diagnostic artwork from Kwantlen First Nation creator Phyllis Atkins, whose plan featuring sturgeon and eulachon will beryllium engraved connected the Highway 17 overpass astatine Old Yale Road.

The plan includes replicas of sturgeon scutes, the bony plates the food person connected their backs. Atkins says she was inspired by her clip studying the food on the Fraser River.

"It was beingness changing being close connected the stream successful our unceded accepted territory of Kwantlen. We had sites close up and down the Fraser," said Atkins. "I got to spot first-hand the position of the stream our radical utilized to question and food for thousands of years. I truly felt that connection."

read-entire-article