New bridge raises safety fears for New West cyclists

By OKSANA SHTOHRYN

New Westminster residents worried about speeding drivers and incomplete bike lanes fear the new Pattullo Bridge will worsen safety.

The new four-lane bridge, officially named Stal̕əw̓asəm Bridge by the Kwantlen First Nation and Musqueam Indian Band, is set to open around Christmas and will include dedicated cycling and pedestrian lanes. 

The bridge is more than twice as wide as the old structure. But residents worry the wider, modern bridge will draw even more traffic through New Westminster.

“Opening a new bridge will exacerbate the situation. It will get worse, because it just encourages more through traffic to come,” said Andrew Feltham, co-chair of Hub Cycling’s New Westminster local committee.

The province began construction in 2021 on the $1.6-billion replacement bridge. The new bridge will replace the aging Pattullo Bridge, an 88-year-old structure that was falling apart and couldn’t survive an earthquake. Originally scheduled to open two years earlier, the bridge links New Westminster and Surrey, handling tens of thousands of vehicles daily, including over one million heavy trucks annually. The province will own and maintain the new bridge when it opens.

Safety concerns before bridge even opens

Even before the bridge opens, residents say the city’s streets feel dangerous. Eileen Brown, a Sapperton resident, lives in a neighbourhood next to the bridge. 

“Sometimes I can wait at the crosswalk, and a couple of cars go by without stopping,” she said. “I see people go through red lights. And that happens more than it used to.”

Areas around McBride Boulevard and the Brunette and Columbia intersection are among the most dangerous for cyclists, Feltham said. He said the bridge could make things worse by bringing more frustrated and anxious drivers onto streets with no room for additional traffic.

A regional problem

Feltham said the traffic problem in New Westminster isn’t really about local drivers.

“When you complain about traffic in New Westminster, it’s not a local problem, it’s a regional problem,” he said. 

Most cars in the city are just passing through, not serving city residents, he said.

Mayor Patrick Johnstone, who is also a cyclist, said the city is “still bombarded with this regional through traffic” despite being “the most transit-dependent city in the Lower Mainland” with car use going down.

While the province designed the new bridge to be expandable to six lanes, Johnstone said the city won’t accept that expansion because it would require demolishing parks and homes to build wider roads.

City building cycling network

Instead, the city is focusing on alternative solutions. It’s two years into a five-year plan to build out a cycling network and make streets safer, and in October launched Vision Zero, a task force aimed at eliminating traffic deaths and serious injuries.

Feltham said he’s seeing progress around the city.

“There is a major buildout happening right now in the city, and if you look around the city … you’ll see many new bike paths being built,” he said.

Whether those improvements will be enough won’t be clear until the bridge opens and the network is built. 

Brown said the community needs to monitor the changes. 

“Some of them could be negative, and we need to be aware, and the city needs to be aware and monitoring that,” she said.

The city said in a statement it will monitor traffic patterns and how many people walk and bike as the bridge opens and the cycling network grows.