New West reconsiders United Blvd extension
Posted February 18, 2013 11:58 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
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.
