The provincial British Columbia government in western Canada has chosen a Design-Build-Finance-Operate-Maintain (DBFOM) procurement model for the Vancouver region’s 10-lane bridge replacement for the ageing Massey Tunnel.
The US$2.5 billion project includes a bridge and related Highway 99 improvements between Bridgeport Road in the adjacent city of Richmond and Highway 91 in the city of Delta. The 60-year-old tunnel now carries its limit of 80,000 vehicles a day and is often congested during rush hours.
The 10-lane bridge will be the province's longest and feature a high-occupancy vehicle as well as cycle and pedestrian paths. Upgrades to the highway will include new interchanges on Westminster Highway, Highway 17A and Steveston Road.
A spokesperson for the provincial government’s George Massey Tunnel Replacement Project told World Highways that a tender for the bridge – still not officially named - will go out by the end of the first half this year with construction to start in 2017. Completion is expected in 2022 when it will replace the tunnel, directly below it.
Extensive renovations to the tunnel and attempts to improve access roads have been done over the years, but only about 10 years of life is left in the tunnel itself. It will be closed due to the increasingly high cost of maintaining the structure that was opened in 1959 and also because it fails to meet the latest seismic requirements. Canada’s west coast is along the 1,000km Cascadia fault that stretches from Northern Vancouver Island to Cape Mendocino in northern California.
“The length of the concession has yet to be determined,” she said. “The province intends to fund the George Massey Tunnel replacement project through user tolls managed through Transportation Investment Corporation.”
Transportation Investment Corporation (TI Corp) is the public sector corporation responsible for toll operations on the recently opened Port Mann Bridge and construction of the Port Mann/Highway 1 Improvement Project. TI Corp manages TReO, the all-electronic toll system on the Port Mann Bridge to pay for project construction and the operation and maintenance of 37km of improvements on Highway 1.
So far the falling Canadian dollar against the US dollar has not affected the project, three years in the making. In January 2015 the Canadian dollar was worth around 82 US cents. This month the dollar has been trading at around 70 US cents.
“The project team continues to monitor world economic changes to assess any potential impacts to the business case,” the spokesperson said.
The US$2.5 billion project includes a bridge and related Highway 99 improvements between Bridgeport Road in the adjacent city of Richmond and Highway 91 in the city of Delta. The 60-year-old tunnel now carries its limit of 80,000 vehicles a day and is often congested during rush hours.
The 10-lane bridge will be the province's longest and feature a high-occupancy vehicle as well as cycle and pedestrian paths. Upgrades to the highway will include new interchanges on Westminster Highway, Highway 17A and Steveston Road.
A spokesperson for the provincial government’s George Massey Tunnel Replacement Project told World Highways that a tender for the bridge – still not officially named - will go out by the end of the first half this year with construction to start in 2017. Completion is expected in 2022 when it will replace the tunnel, directly below it.
Extensive renovations to the tunnel and attempts to improve access roads have been done over the years, but only about 10 years of life is left in the tunnel itself. It will be closed due to the increasingly high cost of maintaining the structure that was opened in 1959 and also because it fails to meet the latest seismic requirements. Canada’s west coast is along the 1,000km Cascadia fault that stretches from Northern Vancouver Island to Cape Mendocino in northern California.
“The length of the concession has yet to be determined,” she said. “The province intends to fund the George Massey Tunnel replacement project through user tolls managed through Transportation Investment Corporation.”
Transportation Investment Corporation (TI Corp) is the public sector corporation responsible for toll operations on the recently opened Port Mann Bridge and construction of the Port Mann/Highway 1 Improvement Project. TI Corp manages TReO, the all-electronic toll system on the Port Mann Bridge to pay for project construction and the operation and maintenance of 37km of improvements on Highway 1.
So far the falling Canadian dollar against the US dollar has not affected the project, three years in the making. In January 2015 the Canadian dollar was worth around 82 US cents. This month the dollar has been trading at around 70 US cents.
“The project team continues to monitor world economic changes to assess any potential impacts to the business case,” the spokesperson said.
