Surrey council decided Monday night to award a $5,384,600 contract to B&B Contracting Ltd. to widen Fraser Highway from 96th Avenue to 148th Street in preparation for the construction of the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain expansion.
Scott Neuman, Surrey’s general manager of engineering, told council in a corporate report that the four-lane widening design will establish two lanes of travel “in each direction in one of the most congested corridors in the city and an unfinished central median as early works to allow for the establishment of the future Surrey-Langley Skytrain (“SLS”) guideway installation.”
The work will also include “enhancements” to existing culverts across the highway to improve the passage of fish and wildlife and this work is expected to be finished in August or September to “align with lower traffic volumes and the provincial and federal restrictions for instream works and bird nesting.”
READ ALSO: Trudeau pledges $1.3 billion for SkyTrain to Langley
On Friday Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the federal government will provide $1.3 billion in funding to build the SkyTrain extension, one day after the Conservative Party issued a press release stating that, if elected into government, the Tories would provide “the federal funding needed” to make sure the extension is completed.
Councillor Laurie Guerra said she’s excited to see this work getting underway and Councillor Allison Patton echoed that.
“What you say you’re going to do, you do,” she said, “or else you’re a liar.”
Mayor Doug McCallum noted it’s been 27 years since the “last rail went in the ground, on track, on SkyTrain in Surrey.”
“Tomorrow we’ll be starting into the ground on this,” he said Monday night. He said the project is good for the environment in that “it will take hundreds of cars off our streets.”
“The next spur will go down from King George down to Newton and then to South Surrey,” he said. “That has been put into TransLink’s plan, future plans. which I was part of, which the TransLink board has approved.”
tom.zytaruk@surreynowleader.com
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