Removing the Golden Ears Bridge Toll Was the Right Call. The Missing Follow-Through Is Not.

Toll removal on the Golden Ears Bridge changed how Maple Ridge connects to the rest of the region. The infrastructure improvements needed to handle the resulting traffic increase have not materialized at the same pace.

When the tolls came off the Golden Ears Bridge, the traffic went up. This was predictable. It was predicted. A bridge that was previously avoided by price-sensitive commuters became a genuine alternative route across the Fraser, and the traffic volumes reflected that.

What did not go up at the same pace was the infrastructure on either end of the bridge designed to handle those volumes. The approaches in Maple Ridge — particularly on the north side where the bridge traffic feeds into a road network that was not designed for post-toll volumes — are showing the strain.

Specific intersections are failing. Journey times through the Albion area during peak hours have increased in ways that affect both commuters and the businesses that depend on efficient goods movement.

TransLink and the province share responsibility for the bridge and its approaches. Maple Ridge has been raising the infrastructure gap with both. The response has been the standard combination of sympathy and process — acknowledgment of the problem, commitment to further study, and no funded project with a construction timeline.

The Golden Ears Bridge is a regional asset. The municipalities at either end of it deserve infrastructure investment proportional to the regional traffic they are now absorbing.

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