On Fraser Highway, traffic now flows on four lanes through Surrey’s Green Timbers Urban Forest.
The busy stretch of highway was closed to all traffic in mid-July and scheduled to reopen Oct. 1, but construction work continued until a couple of weeks ago.
The summer/fall road-widening project is part of the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension’s “early works” program. For a sum of $5.38M, B&B Contracting was contracted by the city to widen the highway between 96 Avenue and 148 Street.
The road closure was planned to “safely complete tree removals and installation of fish and wildlife culverts within the fisheries and bird nesting windows.”
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The four-laning of Fraser Highway is designed to “optimize” the rapid-transit project, in what has been one of the city’s most congested road corridors.
Drawings of an elevated SkyTrain line are shown in a September 2020 report to city council.
• RELATED STORY, from July 2021: SkyTrain line through Surrey’s Green Timbers forest involves four-lane Fraser Highway; ‘Optimized’ project plan OK with president of Green Timbers Heritage Society, but not others.
(Story continues below July 2021 video of Fraser Highway before the road-widening project)
SkyTrain line through Green Timbers forest involves four-lane Fraser Highway, in one of #SurreyBC's most congested road corridors.
— Tom Zillich (@TomZillich) July 14, 2021
"Optimized" project plan OK with president of Green Timbers Heritage Society, but not others.@green_timbers @SBofT
STORY: https://t.co/Kozy3WJv6f pic.twitter.com/kZyS5CKVbX
Fraser Highway has become the busiest two-lane road in Surrey, with more than 28,000 cars per day, according to the report.
On July 9, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the federal government will provide $1.3 billion in funding to build the SkyTrain extension from Surrey to Langley.
On July 13, a news release from Surrey city hall trumpeted the start of “early works” in preparation for Surrey-Langley SkyTrain, including the widening of Fraser Highway from 96 Avenue to 148 Street and the removal of the digital billboard sign from the Surrey Sport & Leisure Complex site in Fleetwood.
tom.zillich@surreynowleader.com
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