New Port Mann will be free for introductory week
Posted September 13, 2012 3:36 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
SURREY (NEWS1130) – For whatever reason, they couldn’t tell us about this at yesterday’s big tolling announcement — but today the BC Liberals have made another plug for the new Port Mann Bridge.
There will be a grace period after all.
Transportation Minister Mary Polak made the announcement, the second on tolls in two days.
“Yesterday we announced the introductory toll rate of $1.50, and today I have some more good news: For the first seven days the bridge is open this December, travel will be free; there will be no tolls,” she exclaimed.
It comes just a couple of months after her predecessor Blair Lekstrom said it wouldn’t happen because the provincial government needed to get its hands on toll revenue right away.
Polak says it’s all meant to show commuters the benefits of the new span.
“We’re offering the seven day free period to introduce the bridge to regular commuters and to give those who wouldn’t normally use the bridge the first hand opportunity to look at the world’s widest bridge,” she adds. “Commuters are going to have a substantial amount of time that they are saving. Commute times will be cut by up to 50 per cent once all the construction is complete. That could save motorists up to an hour a day.”
“Following the seven day grace period, the introductory toll rate of $1.50 for passenger vehicles will kick in,” Polak points out.
The Golden Ears Bridge was free for a month upon its opening. Polak says seven days was the best she could do. “We landed on a week because we have to fit in with the budgetary targets that [Transportation Investment Corporation] has to meet. We have to make the math work and we have.”
Eastbound lanes open September 18 after a major traffic shift at the Cape Horn Interchange but tolls will not kick in until sometime in December when traffic over the span moves both ways with a total of eight lanes. Ten lanes will be operating next year once the old bridge is removed.
Meanwhile, the new Port Mann Bridge can now officially be called the widest bridge in the world.
It has made it into the Guinness Book of World Records, beating the old record by over 16 metres that, until today, was held by the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia.
Today, Hundreds of bridge and highway workers packed on to the new span to celebrate its near-completion. News1130 asked if the bridge would be named after any famous British Columbian, but the Minister noted she wasn’t aware as she’s just taken over the transportation file.
