Surrey council has approved an $863,000 contract for designing the rehabilitation and four-laning of the Nicomekl River Bridge on 152 Street in South Surrey.
“It’s kind of the first step in the four-laning of 152nd, eventually,” Coun. Laurie Guerra said during discussion of the project prior to council’s approval Monday (Sept. 13).
Guerra described the project as “much-needed” work that will help alleviate traffic volumes on 152 Street.
According to a corporate report, approximately 22,000 vehicles use the two-lane stretch of 152 Street between the Nicomekl and Serpentine rivers daily, a number that exceeds the threshold for a four-lane road.
In addition to also having no facilities for walking or cycling, it is at risk of flooding that could result in “major economic impacts, restrict the region’s ability to respond to emergencies, and affect essential traffic flow,” the report states.
The existing Nicomekl River Bridge was built in 1982. The design contract covers rehabilitating and twinning the existing structure, as well as adding pedestrian and cycling pathways that will also connect to the planned Nicomekl Riverfront Park, for which a Phase 1 design contract was awarded in July.
READ MORE: Surrey awards $1M contract for Nicomekl park design
Design work for the bridge twinning and rehabilitation is expected to start this month and be complete by April 2022, with construction anticipated to get underway in 2023 – subject to council approval of funding and securing the necessary environmental permits and third-party utility approvals – and finish in 2024.
The total capital value of the project is estimated at $12 million. The design contract was awarded to COWI North America Ltd., jointly funded by the city, TransLink and the federal government, under the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund.
READ MORE: Surrey awards $1-million contract for Serpentine sea dam design
In May 2019, in an announcement staged on the Nicomekl sea dam, federal government officials pledged more than $76 million to the projects to help mitigate coastal flooding in Surrey, Semiahmoo First Nation and Delta communities.
Monday, Coun. Doug Elford noted that he’d heard from residents just days earlier suggesting it would be a good idea to four-lane 152 Street.
“We’re growing so fast and many of our people are frustrated by sitting in traffic,” he said.
The city’s portion of funding is committed in the 2021 Transportation Budget, the report notes.
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