Monday, March 28, 2011

Bridge Building (Photo Of The Day March 28)

A Time To Build

One of the largest construction projects in the Greater Vancouver area right now is the replacement of one of the primary crossings of the Fraser River, by the Trans Canada (#1) Hwy. Considering that the existing Port Mann Bridge was opened to the public in 1964 (Orange and Yellow bridge in the background), it was time for an replacement to be built. Since Surrey BC (south side of the bridge, which you see above) is one of the fastest growing cities in Canada, and that most of the people who live there work in Vancouver, something had to be done to elevate the growing traffic bottleneck between the north and south Fraser regions. The current bridge has 5 lanes (4 normal and one HOV), while the new one will have 10 (6 normal, 2 HOV, 2 Rapid Transit).

When the project for this new bridge was released in 2009 there was some opposition, due to the cost ($3.3 Billion Canadian Dollars), and that no extra funding would be given to improve public transit services, that are inadequate for anyone who does not want to go into Vancouver. Thankfully the project is well ahead of schedule, currently by a year, and may not cost that mush in the end due to savings in labour costs.

I took this photo while I was scouting out shooting locations, because I'm planning on shooting this location at night, while there is actual work being done. The day was cloudy and rather druggy, but I took some shots for the simple purpose of capturing the progress so far. 

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