Port Mann Bridge Being Rebuilt

Hatch Mott MacDonald is leading a joint venture with MMM Group to design and manage the $2.46 billion Port Mann/Highway 1 project near Vancouver, B. C.

The B. C. government is entering a fixed-price contract with Peter Kiewit and Flatiron Constructors to design and build the new crossing, and Hatch Mott Macdonald and MMM Group will lead 12 firms on behalf of the Kiewit-Flatiron joint venture. They will be designing all onshore works and doing project management. TY Lin of San Francisco is the design consultant for the main span bridge.

The $2.6-billion project is the largest highway infrastructure project in Canada planned for the next few years. The crossing over the Fraser River stretches 2 kilometres, linking Coquitlam and Surrey, to the east of Vancouver. But the project also involves widening 37 kilometres of Highway 1, the reconstruction of 13 interchanges, 45 onshore bridges, and a total reconstruction of the Cape Horn/Lougheed Highway Interchange at the west end of the bridge.

Originally the plan was to twin the existing bridge, but in February the B. C. government announced it would build a new span with 10 lanes, including a rapid bus lane and possibly a light rail line. After the new bridge is completed in 2012, the existing 1964 structure will be dismantled. It was designed by CBA engineering as a steel tied arch bridge with an orthotropic deck to carry four lanes. In 2001 it was widened with an extra lane from a design by Buckland and Taylor, and it now carries an estimated 127,000 vehicles a day.