MAPLE RIDGE (NEWS1130) – If you build it, they will come. Or maybe they won’t.

The Golden Ears Bridge isn’t attracting as much traffic as hoped and it’s costing TransLink tens of millions of dollars every year.

“The revenue we’re getting from the tolls is about $35 to $45 million less than the cost that we pay to repay capital payments,” says Sani Zein, the Director of Roads for TransLink.

“That is a shortfall that we are aware of and we are accounting for it in our annual budget,” Zein adds.

The numbers were revealed during yesterday’s meeting between Metro Mayors and BC Transportation Minister Todd Stone.

Included in the terms of the public private partnership under which the span was built, TransLink will continue to repay the cost of the bridge for 35 years after its 2009 opening.

The Golden Ears sees 11 million crossings between Langley and Maple Ridge every year, roughly between 32 and 37,000 trips a day, but Zein insists the span will be worth it in the long run.

“We’re expecting the bridge to be serving the region for at least 100 years, so in the long term, we’re very certain this will be a terrific bridge serving the region and improving connectivity but for the time being we do have a shortfall which we are funding.”

Maple Ridge Mayor Ernie Daykin is disappointed the Golden Ears Bridge isn’t attracting greater numbers, but also agrees it’s far too early to write it off.

“What I keep reminding myself and others, is that this is a 100 year piece of infrastructure and it takes time to build the traffic on our side of the river.”

He admits a number of factors have been working against its success.

“Having opened in ’09 and some of the things that have happened around the world and with the economy and the downturn, that has, I think, a part to play in it,” he says.

“Also a part of the projections for the bridge was upwards of 400 new businesses on our side of the river. That hasn’t happened yet.”

SFU City Program Director Gord Price also feels critics need to take a longer view.

“You are building these structures for 100 years, so [it’s] a little early to say whether it was justified or not. We’ll see how it works out.”

But he is a little surprised to see the span losing so much money.

“There’s always that possibility and so it’s built into the contract. No-one is going to sign a [public private partnership] unless they’ve got their risk covered and in the end it’s always going to be the taxpayer that has to pay the risk for something like a public asset, even if it’s privately built… But it’s certainly higher than I would have expected.”

However, Price also feels we also have a tendency here in the Lower Mainland to overbuild, and says Vancouver’s eight lane Granville Street Bridge being a prime example.