January 31, 2008

TRANSLINK

TransLink funded road construction can be seen throughout the Lower Mainland. The authority is responsible for building and maintaining a number of bridges and roads.

Roadbuilding Authority

TransLink responsible for more than just transit

Brian Martin

correspondent

It doesn’t get the same press coverage as its more glamorous transit sister, but it is every bit as important.

“It” is the road and bridge responsibilities of TransLink, Metro Vancouver’s transportation and transit authority.

TransLink is responsible for kilometres of bridges and roads in the Lower Mainland and it spends hundreds of millions of dollars on them.

A decade ago, the provincial government turned a number of highways, that had previously been provincial roads, over to the municipal level along with several bridges.

They became what TransLink calls its Major Road Network. It became the job of TransLink and the local municipalities to maintain those roads and improve them where necessary. TransLink doesn’t normally handle the physical construction work, as its role is to provide funding and in most cases TransLink is responsible for sharing costs with local municipalities.

In other situations, however, TransLink funds up to 100 per cent of a project which falls under its Major Capital Projects.

An example of that is the $800 million Golden Ears Bridge currently under construction across the Fraser River between Langley and Maple Ridge.

It was considered far too expensive for local municipalities to handle. It is being built as a public/private partnership and when it opens in 2009, it will be a toll bridge operated by a private consortium.

TransLink, however, will remain the owner.

TransLink also owns two other major bridges, the Pattullo Bridge and the Knight Street Bridge along with the relatively small Westham Island Bridge in Delta.

Susan Hollingshead, P.Eng is TransLink manager of roads and bridges. Gary Vlieg, P.Eng is manager of road and infrastructure planning. The two work closely together. Put very simply Vlieg is in charge of planning projects and Hollingshead is in charge of making them happen

TransLink currently budgets $35 million per year for major capital projects, $20 million per year for the major road network and close to $30 million per year for road maintenance and repair.

It can sometimes become challenging to keep up with which road is a provincial highway and which is a municipal highway falling under TransLink’s umbrella.

In the Fraser Valley, for instance, the Number Ten Highway connecting the TransCanada freeway to the ferry terminal at Tsawwassen is still a provincial highway. Next door, though, the Fraser Highway is considered a local road and falls under TransLink’s jurisdiction.

There is a major project to four-lane the Number Ten Highway currently underway and being paid for by the provincial ministry of highways.

At the same time, there is also a project to four-lane the Fraser Highway from the Whalley area of Surrey to Langley. So far, TransLink has committed $45 million to it with millions of dollars on the way.

There are several major projects on the immediate TransLink horizon. One is the Roberts Bank Rail Corridor initiative. This will see as many as nine bridges built over the rail line that connects the coal port at Roberts Bank to the mines in southeastern B.C. The trains are each one-mile long and cause considerable traffic woes as they cross the valley.

The federal government has committed to help fund the $307 million project. Other partners will include Delta, Surrey, City of Langley, District of Langley, the provincial government, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority and several railways.

Another major project that will move into the active planning stage this year is a North Fraser Perimeter road, which will run from Stewardson Way in New Westminster, along Front Street and continue to United Boulevard in Coquitlam.

It will be the logical extension of the provincial government’s own North Fraser Perimeter project currently underway which involves building a new Pitt River Bridge.

Other current major projects include a $132 million railway overpass in Port Coquitlam funded jointly by the city and TransLink and a new connector route in Port Moody. One project no one is ready to talk about is the Pattullo Bridge connecting Surrey to New Westminster. I

It is more than 70 years old and showing its age. Whether it will be replaced with another bridge or whether it will be upgraded is an open question at this point, according to Vlieg.

All options are being studied this year, he said, and nobody is willing to hazard a guess as to what the answer might be.

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