Alex Fraser Bridge opened 30 years ago today
Posted September 22, 2016 9:35 am.
Last Updated September 23, 2016 12:08 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
DELTA (NEWS 1130) – Today marks 30 years since the Alex Fraser Bridge first opened and Delta’s mayor says she never expected the crossing would become as busy and gridlocked as it has.
Mayor Lois Jackson was on Delta Municipal Council when the first car drove across the span, which back in 1986, was just a four-lane bridge. She says it took only a few months before it needed to be expanded to six lanes. “I don’t think they really realized the kind of traffic that was going to be using the highway.”
She adds when it opened there was also a traffic light on the north end, but it only took about a year before that was removed. “We wanted access from North Delta but I don’t know if we envisioned the traffic we got coming through here today.”
Before the bridge was built, people in Delta would take the Massey Tunnel or go over to the Pattullo Bridge to get across the Fraser River.
Up until 2005, the Alex Fraser was the longest cabled-stayed bridge in the world and was named after a former minister of transportation in BC.
