Port Mann enters new phase, as commuters pay regular tolls
Posted January 4, 2014 4:16 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
NEW WESTMINSTER (NEWS1130) – While the new Port Mann Bridge is already a year old, it’s entering another phase this week.
It will be the first regular work week after toll discounts have expired.
New West city councillor Chuck Puckmayr is dreading how the full tolls and more traffic coming in off of the new South Fraser Perimeter Road are going to affect the Pattullo Bridge.
“Seventy-five to eighty-five per cent of the traffic that is going from the south side of the Pattullo Bridge through New Westminster are heading somewhere other than New Westminster. We anticipate there will be no reduction. We assume there will be an increase,” he says.
And he says the Pattullo is already taking a hit from increased truck traffic since the opening of the South Fraser Perimeter Road a few weeks ago. He insists trucks are turning off the new highway and onto the Pattullo instead of following it all the way onto the Port Mann
“Cutting through New Westminster is only a five kilometre route. Trucks will take the short cut. Even if it means gridlock, they will absorb that time and sit in gridlock to avoid the $9 toll.”
The Pattullo is in bad need of repairs, and TransLink wants either a new four-lane or six-lane bridge.
Puckmayr says TransLink and the province should revisit the idea of a new crossing between the Port Mann and the Pattullo.
Regular car tolls on the bridge are now $3 each way.
