38. Case 34: Port Mann Bridge Vancouver

In the year 2006, the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, British Columbia launched the Gateway Program which was an integral part of the British Columbia’s Pacific Gateway Strategy. The existing Highway 1 corridor from Vancouver to Langley was one of the three priority corridors identified in the Gateway program. This corridor was the busiest and most economically critical route in Greater Vancouver. The original bridge built in the 1960s was designed for 850,000 people. It is now the only major east west corridor to serve approximately 2.5 million population of Greater Vancouver. Port Mann bridge alone carry approximately 127,000 vehicles per day. This represented an increase of 65% since 1985 when the daily traffic was about 77,000 vehicles. The new bridge was necessitated due to traffic congestion in both directions which was 13 h on an average weekday. It was stated that the daily traffic on the Port Mann Bridge was 20% higher than on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. The population of Vancouver is expected to grow to 900,000 over the next 25 years. The Port Mann Bridge was constructed to tackle the traffic congestion and enhance the traffic mobility in Vancouver. The project involved the replacement of the existing Port Mann Bridge and widening of the Trans-Canada Highway and its interchanges. The newly constructed Port Mann Bridge was composed of three major sections. The first section consisted of the cable stayed 850-m-long main bridge across the Fraser River. The second section featured the 350-m south approach at Surrey. The third section consisted of the 820-m northern approach at Coquitlam. The total design and construction cost was estimated to be $2.46 billion.