Dear Editor,
Re: “Bridge interchange a potential boon for drivers,” Letters, Oct. 19.
Aaron Yims six points of scientific theory are laughable.
Having lived in Richmond or Marpole my entire 65 years, I have witnessed, like many others, the reality of building new bridges —from the Oak Street Bridge in 1957 (which was a toll bridge at the time) to the building of the new Port Mann Bridge.
First of all, and most importantly, all new bridges do is redistribute the traffic volume to an infrastructure that can’t handle the increased pressure, turning it into a bottleneck.
For example, Highway 99 northbound is already backed up on a daily basis past Blundell.
Highway 1, coming off the new Port Mann, hits traffic bottlenecks as soon as you approach interchanges traveling westbound through the Burnaby Lakes.
The new Highway 17 westbound is backed up from 176th all the way back to the south end of the Alex Fraser.
The East-West Connector, is a daily bottleneck in both directions.
The list, as most commuters will testify, could go on and on and on.
However, in their theory of building bridges, the provincial government spent $800 million on the Golden Ears Bridge.
How many readers have used that one? Apparently, not many. The traffic volume is so light on that bridge local radio and TV don’t even include it in their traffic volume reports.
But then TransLink (the Liberal government’s scape goat ) knows what’s best for us, right?
When the new bridge is built, I can hear the morning traffic report now.
“There is an accident northbound on the Oak Street Bridge .... Traffic northbound is backed up south of the bridge past Highway 17. Drivers should try using the Alex Fraser Bridge. It’s only backed up to 64th ave in Delta.”
Bruce MacLeod
Richmond
