Re: “Falling ice closes Port Mann,” The Leader, Dec. 20.
What a disaster for anyone doing a commute over a bridge. How could this happen?
The public deserves an explanation for the new hazard facing commuters going over the new $3-billion Port Mann Bridge, especially if they have to pay for each crossing by way of a toll. This is the Trans-Canada Highway. It has to be safe.
None of the commuters deserve the grief to get a windshield or sunroof replaced and body and paint damage repaired, let alone the shock and trauma.
A lot of people will not use that bridge again. Mark my words, I am not the only one who will be saying this.
This should never have happened. Has not the technology and prevention of this very foreseen ice build-up been calculated by all the “risk managers”? Look at the design of this bridge and compare it to others. The cables are angled too far over the road. Did this have to happen?
This bridge has to be under warranty, right? Drive with a lot of care everyone.
Paul Fitzgerald, Surrey
Political hot air could warm cables
Global warming can’t come soon enough for red-faced Mike Proudfoot, CEO of Transportation Investment Corporation (TI Corp).
TI Corp is the public crown corporation established under the Transportation Investment Act to oversee the Port Mann Bridge and highway project. Two of the goals at TI Corp are to one, reduce congestion and travel times, and two, improve safety and accessibility. No doubt the commuters caught up in last Wednesday’s fiasco of ice-bomb-induced confusion and congestion would like to fire coach Proudfoot because his team didn’t come close to scoring on either of those two goals.
Now if TI Corp could only utilize the political hot air the B.C. Liberal government will generate while defending their multi-billion-dollar project, the bridge’s support cables wouldn’t need to be retro-fitted with electric heaters.
Lloyd Atkins, Vernon
‘Falcon’s Folly’ a fair-weather bridge
I haven’t used the Port Mann bridge since December 2010, and I will never use the new privatized bridge. I don’t think it’s safe.
If there is a 7.0 earthquake, goodbye bridge – the only thing giving it any stability is the “S” shape of the roadway. And now we find that it is a fair-weather-only bridge, closed in a minor snowstorm!
My new name for it is Falcon’s Folly.
Robert McCroskey, Surrey