The Alex Fraser Bridge is long with a main span of. The towers are tall. It consists of seven lanes, three in each direction with the middle lane acted as the counterflow lane, and has a maximum speed limit of 90 km per hour until July 24, 2019 when the speed limit was lowered to 70 km/h to accommodate the additional counterflow lane. Upon opening in 1986, only four of the six available lanes were open. Cyclists and pedestrians share two narrow side-walks one on each side. All six lanes opened in 1987 after traffic demand justified the need. The bridge's southern end is in North Delta and its northern end is on Delta's Annacis Island. Connections on its southern end lead to Blaine, Washington and to White Rock. The connections on the northern end lead into the cities of New Westminster, Richmond, and Burnaby, and on into Vancouver itself. It is a major artery in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. The bridge was constructed for the British Columbia Ministry of Transportation and was designed by a joint venture of Klohn Crippen Berger and Buckland & Taylor. Its total cost was $58 million.
Recent History
In December 2016 the Alex Fraser Bridge along with the Port Mann Bridge dropped "ice bombs," also called "slush bombs" on vehicles causing damage to windshields. The Alex Fraser has the cables along the sides of the driving lanes where as the Port Mann has them cross over-top of the driving lanes. In addition to 2016, this also happened on the Alex Fraser in 2005, 2008, and 2012. The Alex Fraser needed to be closed a few times during December 2016 due to the possibility of ice bombs; this caused major traffic problems in the region. To combat this issue, the BC Government announced that a heavy lift helicopter will be used to blow snow and ice off the cables to prevent it from accumulating and falling onto the cars below. According to an announcement on January 19, 2017, a new lane will be added on the bridge by slightly narrowing the existing lanes and removing the shoulders. A counterflow system with movable barrier will be added to help ease traffic during morning and afternoon rush hours. This will be a joint venture by the provincial and federal government. The new seventh lane opened to traffic on September 14, 2019 with the moveable reversible zipper in operation on December 16, 2019.
