Frankly Speaking

The new Pattullo Bridge will be built by the provincial government, at a cost of $1.377 billion. Premier John Horgan made that announcement Friday morning in New Westminster. It is set to open in 2023. Premier John Horgan was in New Westminster Friday morning to announce the replacement of the Pattullo Bridge. The province has finally broken the lengthy and frustrating logjam over financing of a new bridge. It has taken over the project in its entirety, and will pay the $1.377 billion to build the new bridge and demolish the old one when the new bridge opens in 2023. Construction is set to begin in the summer of 2019. The Pattullo Bridge was originally built by the provincial government in the days when T.D. Pattullo was premier. It opened in 1937 during his second term as premier and has borne his name since it opened. It was a major and much-needed public works project in the midst of the Great Depression, at a time when all governments, including the province, had very ...

When the BC Liberal government under then-premier Gordon Campbell decided to replace the original Port Mann Bridge (pictured) and upgrade Highway 1 between Vancouver and Langley, it failed to see how unfair it was to only charge bridge users a toll to pay for the entire project. That inequity has been rectified by their successors, the new NDP government under Premier John Horgan. Stephen Rees photo On Friday, Premier John Horgan announced that tolls would be removed from the Port Mann Bridge and the Golden Ears Bridge, effective Sept. 1. This fulfills a key election promise made by the NDP – one that likely made the difference between winning and losing the provincial election. They picked up four seats in North Surrey and Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows (and a fifth one in North Delta). There is no doubt that the pledge to remove the tolls was a key factor in some voters switching their loyalty from the BC Liberals to the NDP in all those ridings. (The importance of this pr...

The Pattullo Bridge is 80 years old this year, but it isn't getting birthday greetings from any politicians or bridge users. The first full weekend closure of the Pattullo Bridge is scheduled to take place this weekend – from 9 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday. It is the latest in a series of weekend closures of the bridge over the past few summers, as work crews attempt to apply baling wire and binder twine to keep it patched up a little bit longer. The Pattullo Bridge turned 80 this year, but there has been no celebration of any kind. The bridge has become a sad joke. The never-ending talk of replacement is a perfect reflection of the impotence of TransLink and the oft-fractious relationships between cities north of the Fraser and those on the south side. TransLink has been talking about replacing the bridge for years. It took over the bridge from the provincial government upon its formation almost 20 years ago. The width of a replacement bridge has been contentious, wit...

Travelling across the Port Mann Bridge may become free, if the NDP follow through with plans to eliminate tolling on bridges. An NDP minority government will likely be in place within the month. None of us have any idea of when the NDP will form a minority government in Victoria, but the agreement signed last week by NDP leader John Horgan and Green leader Andrew Weaver indicates it will happen. Now that the legislature has been called back (it will begin sitting on June 22), it's a fair guess that an NDP minority government will take power in late June or early July. That means some significant changes in the transportation realm, one of the hot button issues that attracted votes for both parties in Surrey and Delta. The NDP was the prime beneficiary, going from three seats in Surrey to seven NDP MLAs representing Surrey and Delta in the provincial legislature. This compares to four BC Liberals. Attention to transportation issues also helped the NDP win the two Mapl...