North Shore commuters who pass through the congested Lower Lynn stretch of Highway 1 will soon be testing out the new north Lynn Creek Bridge.
“It’s going to happen in March or April and this shift will last about eight to 12 months, and that’s to enable us to do some rehab work on the existing Lynn Creek Bridge,” said Jay Porter, project manager for the Lower Lynn Improvement project.
The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure intended the new north bridge to be put into use by late fall or early winter 2019, but, no secret to anyone, an unusually wet winter has slowed the work down.
“It’s weather dependent. We’ve been really kind of hit pretty hard with the rains in January. That’s pushed things off a bit,” Porter said.
When the new bridge opens, though, it will bring with it a new westbound lane connecting the Mt. Seymour Parkway to the new Mountain Highway off-ramp.
Porter said their traffic models indicate that should reduce congestion by allowing people headed from Mt. Seymour Parkway up to Lynn Valley to skip the current eave into regular highway traffic.
“That’s actually the big one of the big improvements that the Lower Lynn projects are targeting,” Porter said.
Between May and June, Porter said he expects the new Mountain Highway off-ramp to be fully aligned with the new westbound on-ramp and be completed with a new traffic signal.
By the fall of 2020, Porter hopes to see the new Keith Road overpass built, aligning Keith directly with Mt. Seymour Parkway, instead of forcing drivers to jog south and then share access to the parkway with people exiting Highway 1, as they do now.
The trail network through the area is slowly being pieced back together. The new Keith Creek trail opened in December and the West Lynn Creek Trail that runs under the existing bridges, should be reopened by late spring, Porter said. While the first phases of the project have gone more than a year behind schedule, the remainder of the $198-million project is still expected to be completed on time in the fall of 2021 and on budget, Porter said.
