Port Mann project on time, budget
The massive $3.3-billion Port Mann/Highway 1 project is on time and on budget, according to the company behind the project.
"Without question, it is the largest transportation infrastructure project in British Columbia's history," said Mike Proudfoot with the Transportation Investment Corporation, the company behind the project.
Construction on the project, including a new 10-lane Port Mann Bridge across the Fraser River and improvements on Highway 1 from Vancouver to Langley, began in August 2008.
The new bridge is slated to be operational by December 2012, with the project scheduled to be complete in 2013.
The Port Mann bridge is currently congested for an average of 14 hours a day, but the new bridge is expected to cut commute times significantly.
"Up to an hour, depending on where you are coming from," Proudfoot said. "But on average, everybody can expect at least a 30 per cent improvement of their travel time."
The project is a key component of the provincial Gateway Program, aimed at improving "the movement of people, goods and transit throughout the Lower Mainland," according to the province.
The Port Mann currently moves about 127,000 cars a day — 15 per cent more than the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, which has one more lane.
The new bridge will have three components — the main span, the north approach and the south approach. The main span, once completed, will be the second longest cable-stayed span in the western hemisphere. Its cables will be suspended from two towers, used to support the steel girders and concrete panels on the main span.
"There's 288 of these cables, each comprised of many strands in each cable," Proudfoot said. "[The] total length, stretched end to end, would be about 45 kilometres."
The massive engineering project involves piecing two types of bridge together as one. The three sections — the main span, as well as the north and south approaches — will be joined together very precisely.
From the north and the south, 90-tonne sections of concrete that make the deck are dropped into place, one at a time, from a specially designed horizontal crane. That process will be repeated almost 1,200 times by the time the bridge is finished.
"Each and every one of them is engineered and designed to fit and be placed sequentially," Proudfoot said. "All modern survey tools — lasers and all that modern technology — is used on a regular basis to make sure it all fits together."
The project is almost 60 per cent complete. The public-private partnership will be paid for through $3-tolls each way for the next 40 years, but car poolers and overnight truckers will get a discount.
Once all 10 lanes are complete, the 850-metre span cable-stay structure will be the widest in North America — as well as one of the longest.
Buses will run on the new bridge for the first time in over 20 years and there will be lanes for carpooling and cyclists.
