The City of New Westminster is focused on protecting neighbourhoods from traffic impacts related to lane closures on the Pattullo Bridge.

TransLink began work on the $10-million deck rehabilitation project on the weekend. Until Sept. 30, the bridge will have a single lane of traffic in each direction.

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“Our focus is on neighbourhoods,” said Lisa Leblanc, the city’s transportation manager. “The idea is to start with information and a soft approach, reinforce the existing restrictions that we have got in place to protect neighbourhoods. If that is not working, we will ramp it up and increase enforcement or put some hard closures in so people can’t get into those neighbourhoods to do the wrong thing.”

Mayor Jonathan Cote said the city is hopeful that drivers will start to find alternative routes to the Pattullo Bridge or to use transit. He said the Port Mann Bridge has a lot of excess capacity, so it will be interesting to see if traffic volumes on that tolled route start to rise.

TransLink did some transportation modelling to indicate where long queues could appear when the bridge capacity was reduced from four to two travel lanes.

“Based on that, we had a consultant develop a neighbourhood monitoring and mitigation program to identify all the spots that might be vulnerable to people shortcutting through neighbourhoods,” Leblanc said. “Our focus has really been on protecting neighbourhoods. If people are choosing to drive, that’s their choice, but we are not going to make it easier for them by degrading our neighbourhoods.”

Representatives from two companies hired by the city to address the traffic issues have been out in the field monitoring traffic and recommending actions to nip problems in the bud. The city has also met with police, whose top priority is to protect the city’s most vulnerable areas - schools, parks and areas where seniors might be in larger numbers.

“There will still be motor vehicles on streets in New West. We want to make sure those vehicles are on streets they should be on, which are the bigger roads, and that they are not finding ways to bleed through the neighbourhoods and disrupt our residential areas. That’s really important to me,” Leblanc said. “That’s why we are out there directing traffic and trying to mitigate for that and nipping it in the bud as early as possible."

According to TransLink, there were 51,000 crossings on the Pattullo Bridge on Monday, compared to 82,000 the previous Monday. With a 50 per cent drop in lane capacity, that means about 31,000 trips (38 per cent) were redistributed to other routes.

On Tuesday, there were 53,706 crossings on the Pattullo Bridge, a slight increase from the day before. TransLink anticipates it will be a week or two before drivers settle into a new commuting pattern that works for them.