The Pattullo Bridge Replacement Project will better connect Surrey and New Westminster

The Pattullo Bridge replacement project

When complete in 2024, the Pattullo Bridge replacement will connect Surrey and New Westminster across the Fraser River

Named after British Columbia’s 22nd premier, Duff Pattullo, the Pattullo Bridge has been a historic connection across the Fraser River between two Metro Vancouver communities − Surrey and New Westminster − since 1937. But now, after 85 years of service, the venerable, 1,227-metre arch bridge starting to show its age.

The Pattullo Bridge is among the oldest bridges in Metro Vancouver and has exceeded its designed end-of-life by more than 30 years, and simply does not meet many modern design standards. The existing deck’s four lanes are too narrow and are missing a centre median barrier. Additionally, the current bridge only has a single narrow sidewalk for pedestrian and bicycle use, with no barrier protection from incoming traffic. Because of this, it was announced in 2018 that the B.C. government would be moving forward with the construction of a new $1.377 billion Pattullo Bridge replacement approximately 100 metres upstream of the existing bridge.

“This is an essential transportation link that British Columbians rely on, and it’s our job to make sure it’s safe and gets people moving better,” Premier Horgan said in a press release at the time. “Replacing the Pattullo Bridge will help people get home to their families quickly and safely, while creating good jobs for local workers.”

The Pattullo Bridge Replacement Project is being delivered solely by the Province of British Columbia through Transportation Investment Corporation (TI Corp), which has been tasked with overseeing the construction. When complete the new Pattullo Bridge will be owned, operated, and maintained by the B.C. Government. Fraser Crossing Partners (FCP) − a joint-partnership between Acciona Infrastructure Canada and Aecon Constructors − was selected to undertake the design build finance contract, with the long-span bridge design by Leonhardt, Andrä und Partner Beratende Ingenieure, Hatch Corporation, and EXP Services.

The new bridge will run approximately 1,235 metres across the Fraser River and include a 530-metre-long, cable-stayed main span that features four lanes built to modern safety standards. And while the new crossing will open with two lanes in each direction, same as today, it will now include a centre safety median barrier and wider lanes to accommodate both passenger and commercial vehicles, as well as have walking and cycling lanes on both sides of the bridge that are separated from traffic.

By Paul Adair

“The new Pattullo Bridge has also been designed to be expandable to six lanes if future capacity requirements are higher,” says Wendy Itagawa, Executive Project Director, Pattullo Bridge Replacement. “This will be achieved by converting the outside bridge multi-use pathways into two new traffic lanes and constructing new multi-use pathways by cantilevering out from the existing superstructure.”

On the Surrey side of the river, the Pattullo Bridge replacement will connect directly to King George Boulevard and Highway 17, as well as to new and existing multi-use paths. On the New Westminster side to the north, the bridge will link with new walking and cycling paths (including four new multi-use pathway bridges) in addition to urban integration enhancements, such as new landscaping and landscaped boulevards, and new amenities for pedestrians and cyclists. For vehicles, travel will be made safer and more efficient going to and coming off the bridge on the New Westminster side with direct connections to and from Royal Avenue, McBride Boulevard, and East Columbia Street, which includes a new direct off ramp connected to the latter.

Currently the in-river bridge foundation work is well underway. The pile driving is complete on the 27 in-river piles for the foundation set to support the main tower of the new bridge, with the deepest piles installed to a depth of approximately 75 metres, and in early April crews completed a continuous 36-hour concrete pour to finish the cap pile. Construction will now begin on the 170-metre bridge tower using self-climbing formwork and a tower crane. Once the tower construction has progressed to a certain elevation, crews will then begin construction of the lower and upper crossbeams. Further pile installation work will also begin on the secondary in-water pier this summer.

“The deck construction is expected to start in early 2023 using the balanced cantilever method, and the deck will be supported by three sets of longitudinal steel girders with transverse floor beams and constructed using pre-cast concrete panels,” says Itagawa. “The cable-stayed span will be supported by 80 cables in a dual-plane, semi-fan arrangement, and the H-shaped tower was selected to avoid any cables being above the road due to the risk of ice accretion.”

In New Westminster, site preparation work continues and the construction of two on-land bridge foundations is underway. Drilled-shaft methodology is being used instead of pile driving to minimize noise and vibration for nearby residents.

nearly all seven bridge foundations, as well as the bridge abutment and offramp structures. Upcoming activities include continued construction of bridge foundations and approach structures, and site preparation, utility relocations, and road work.

The Fraser River is the longest river in the province with high water flow velocities, and the replacement bridge has been designed to have a much smaller footprint in the water, consisting of a single tower and one additional pier, which has many advantages such as, less construction time in the Fraser River, easier navigation of the river for marine users, and a reduced impact on aquatic life. Doing this, however, required substantial research into the effects of the size and position on the structures downstream from the bridge. “The bridge hydraulic effects have been a key design element to ensure no adverse impacts due to scour and sedimentation on downstream structures and navigation channels,” says Itagawa. “As part of the project, we built a 1:80 scale model of the bridge foundations in a lab in Vancouver to model different hydraulic scenarios and this, combined with the numerical modelling, has informed the bridge foundation and scour protection design.”

Another important component of the project has been centred on urban integration and the creation of improved walking and cycling paths that connect to − and from − the bridge. As part of this, the project team has spent more than a year performing extensive technical analysis that will provide the best active transportation connections for all ages and abilities.

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“Given some technical and terrain considerations in the area, active transportation groups were engaged throughout the process, which has resulted in several design improvements to multi-use paths, including additional paths and more direct connections for walkers and cyclists,” says Itagawa.

Sustainability and protecting the environment has also been top of mind throughout the course of bridge construction, and the project has gone through both provincial and federal permitting processes and environmental assessments. These assessments have reviewed many aspects of the potential environmental/social impacts of the project, including fish and fish habitat, marine use and navigation, archaeology, traffic, and noise, and some of the requirements that have come out of the permitting process include maintaining access to navigation channels for marine users and limiting work in the river to the least risk fisheries window, which annually runs from mid-June until the end of January.

“One of the major considerations has been the protection of the river’s aquatic life, including the need to have as little impact on it as possible as per various provincial and federal mandates,” says Itagawa. “To minimize disturbance to fish during in-river bridge foundation works, the contractor is using an underwater noise mitigation system. This system includes a confined bubblecurtain system which dissipates the underwater noise around the piledriving work areas.”

Work on the Pattullo Bridge replacement is expected to wrap up and be open to traffic in 2024, at which point the existing bridge will begin to be removed. l

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