Let’s head back to March of 1959 during a press preview of the soon-to-open Deas Island Tunnel, later renamed the George Massey Tunnel.
At the time, Highways Minister Phil Gaglardi proclaimed that the “next major project” to be undertaken by the B.C. Department of Highways would be a new bridge across the Fraser River at Annacis Island.
Saying his department had begun studying such a crossing, Gaglardi said that the project may start in as soon as five years, depending on traffic pressure and population growth.
He said it was presumed that an Annacis bridge would mean a connecting highway across Delta, running west of Scott Road and meeting the new highway being built from the tunnel to the U.S. border.
It would take decades before the Annacis bridge connecting North Delta with Richmond and New Westminster was built, however.
The now heavily travelled bridge, named after former highways minister Alex Fraser Bridge, opened on Sept. 22, 1986.
The 465-metre span used just four lanes when it opened but it had the capability to convert to six lanes. It didn't take that long for the conversion to happen.
The longest cable-style bridge in the world at the time it opened, the Alex Fraser was expected to reroute almost 25 per cent of the traffic using the George Massey Tunnel and the Pattullo Bridge.
The $444 million bridge was also described as a "blessing" for tunnel commuters.
Some 37,000 vehicles were expected to use the crossing daily with commuters saving as much as 20 minutes each way. The volume is now around the 120,000.
