Front Street is once again off limits to trucks.
Metro Vancouver has begun work on a major sewer upgrade project, requiring Front Street to be closed to all vehicle traffic between Columbia and Begbie streets for about six months. While regular vehicle traffic can still use most of Front Street, with a short detour on Begbie Street, large trucks aren’t permitted on Front Street and will be rerouted to Royal Avenue.
“Truck traffic will not be allowed on Front Street at all. During the day, it will be diverted to Royal Avenue, and, post the hours allowed on Royal Avenue, it will have to find other routes, either on the perimeter of the city or outside the city,” said Mayor Jonathan Cote. “Car traffic will still be able to use Front Street, but they will have to reconnect at Begbie Street.”
Colin Meldrum, Metro Vancouver’s division manager of liquid waste services, project delivery, said the contractor started work on the project on Monday and was instructed to have the work substantially complete in October.
“This will be a challenge,” he told council Monday, “but we are confident it can be done.”
The work, taking place in a section of Front Street behind Kelly O’Bryan’s restaurant, is related to the Sapperton pump station that’s now under construction and will be complete in 2019. It will eventually carry liquid waste from New Westminster and neighbouring communities to the Annacis Island treatment plant.
“The work we are doing is very complicated,” Meldrum said. “Because we are working around live sewers and have to move sewage flow from one pipe to another pipe, we have to be very careful in order that we don’t have unanticipated sewage spills. We want to make sure we are protecting the environment and public health and safety at all times through this work.”
Front Street businesses will be open for business as usual. Work on the project will be done Monday to Saturday between 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
To get the project done as fast as possible, Metro Vancouver will be applying for variances from the city so it can work on the project in the evening on occasion.
Tanya Melanson, a communications and education coordinator at Metro Vancouver, said regular traffic will be detoured around the construction area, so there will be blockades at Begbie and Front Street.
“Local traffic will have access to that street,” she said. “It will be permitted in and out with a flagger, but regular traffic will be detoured down Front Street, up Begbie, and along Columbia Street.”
Melanson said any vehicles over three axles in size aren’t permitted on Front Street and will have to take Royal Avenue between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. or take an alternative route. Smaller trucks will be permitted to go through the area.
Cote said the most common complaint he’s heard about this project is why it couldn’t hve been coordinated with recent road closures to minimize the disruption on the community.
Meldrum said Metro Vancouver had originally hoped to do the work with the closure of Front Street in 2016/2017 (when the city closed the street to demolish part of the parkade and build the new Front Street mews), but was unable to do so because of a number of staffing issues.
Cote said most people recognize underground infrastructure projects do create some inconvenience, but they’re important and need to be done.
“No one gets excited over improvements to the regional sewer system, but if it didn’t work, we’d have some major problems,” he said.
Aside from traffic impacts, Coun. Patrick Johnstone wondered if there would be any smell associated with work being done on sewer lines.
Meldrum said there will be several days of open sewer work, during which time there will be some “localized odor,” but it’s not anticipated to be noticeable in residential areas.
