Fortis B.C. puts finishing touches on new gas line that snarled Metro roads
Credit to Author: Harrison Mooney| Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2019 01:01:30 +0000
Two years of traffic chaos in Metro Vancouver are drawing to an end as Fortis B.C. puts the finishing touches on Major gas line upgrade between Coquitlam and Vancouver.
The private utility thanked commuters for their patience during construction on Friday, which installed 20 kilometres of new and upgraded gas line.
This year, 12 kilometres of new line were installed along Lougheed Highway, Bainbridge Avenue, Broadway, Gaglardi Way and Como Lake Avenue, Fortis said, adding to the eight kilometres built along East 1st Avenue and Lougheed Highway in 2018 as part of the same project. All involved road closures.
Now it’s just a matter of fixing the roads the last of the roads torn up during the project, which opened numerous sinkholes and snarled traffic along the Lougheed Highway and elsewhere in the region, causing major headaches for commuters.
The gas line upgrade between Vancouver to Coquitlam is scheduled to be completed in 2019, with 12 kilometres of new gas line being built and roads along the project route facing disruptions during construction. The community can stay informed, including on traffic, through the project website TalkingEnergy.ca.
In 2018, East 1st Avenue, one of Vancouver’s key arterial routes, was closed to traffic from Nanaimo Street to Clark Drive all summer as Fortis replaced five kilometres of lines.
In May, two sinkholes opened up along Como Lane Avenue in Coquitlam, drawing the ire of Mayor Richard Stewart, who accused Fortis of trying to complete the work too quickly and shared his frustration with the project in a Facebook comment that month.
Fortis called that incident “a slight movement in the ground,” apologized for the inconvenience and stated that this type of event can happen during deeper excavations.
But now the work is nearly finished, Fortis said Friday. All lanes on Como Lake Avenue reopened at the Robinson Street intersection in Coquitlam earlier this week, and in the coming weeks, the utility will complete the restoration of other roads along the route, including work at the following locations:
• Broadway/Como Lake Avenue intersection with North Road
• East and north of the Como Lake Avenue/Spuraway Avenue intersection with Mariner Way in Coquitlam
• Madison Avenue between Lougheed Highway and Buchanan Street in Burnaby.
Fortis estimates that this work will be wrapped up in two weeks.
with files from Tiffany Crawford
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