NEW WESTMINSTER (NEWS1130) – After years of opposition, New Westminster is putting the idea of a United Boulevard extension back on the table.
This comes as the old Bailey Bridge, linking Coquitlam and New Westminster, closed last week after engineers found structural problems.
New Westminster Mayor Wayne Wright says they’re working to fix the span right now and it should be re-opened in a couple of weeks.
“What’s happened is a Bailey Bridge by itself is not something that lasts forever; that one there had between 20 and 25 years of time on it and we’d gone through about the 17th year and you have inspections all the time… There are some cracks in the foundation and the steel of it itself so we’re fixing those.”
Wright tells us he’s ready to sit down and look at other options for the area. “Now it’s a fast-forward and everyone who has been coming and looking at it… if we’re going to make a change there, let’s get the change that’s going to work for a long time.”
He wants more details as to who actually uses the crossing so that moving forward, the best decision can be made.
Wright also wants to wait and see how all the changes to the Port Mann work out and then assess if there are any other trucking routes that have changed.
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New Westminster should levy a toll on this bridge to fund the New West Bubble Project. The Bubble Project would ensure that all of New Westminster is shielded from reality.
There you go, now it will pay for the whole expansion! New West residents would love for there to be a route that gets all the traffic out of their nieghborhoods and all it would take is a ring road on the riverfront. I say be one of the forward looking cities and toll that sucker! I don’t need to use it, so it has my vote… Oh wait, I live in New West, but this is far enough from me that it doesn’t matter one way or the other if it’s open, closed, or rerouted…
I guess it took quite some time for the mayor and his council to realize New Westminster if part of the Metro area and as such, they don’t have a choice, but to integrate its roads and ways with the infrastructure of the neighbouring cities, in order to avoid gridlock, something all too common in New West these days.
I love it! Serves you New West folks right. Oh wait, it must be Translink’s fault right? Suckers.
Too late for all that federal funds though. They passed on that and now New Westminster taxpayers are gonna pay through the nose.
Honestly the whole blocking of traffic in New Westminster is now coming back to bite them. They are in the middle of Greater Vancouver. Its inevitable that vehicles are gonna go through there. There is no way around it. If they were smart they would try and get as much federal and provincial funding and create a freeway though the main routes. Right now vehicles try and cut through the side streets because there is so much gridlock creating havoc for all the people who live there. If they got funding from top levels of government there would be no problem for their taxpayers, all the people who live there complaining about the traffic and all the commuters. New Westminster…how not to run a government.
Plenty of materials from the old port mann could be re-used to make a basic 2 lane bridge
-recycles materials
-saves money
-reduces travel time
-increases safety for pedestrians and cars getting stuck on train tracks and emergency response
-increases local business
Or fix the old one with 2×4′s and toll it
Wright you and your council are little slow for this fast growing area, why is new Westminster always behind the times?
This was done, nothing like a little fence sitting to give the impression of action. Bravo Mayor, you have fooled the fools but not those of us who actually pay attention.