Quote:
Originally Posted by VanCvl
It may not be obvious if you don't have an engineering/construction background but after the roof section is poured there is a 28 day period that's required before any backfill can be completed to ensure the concrete is at sufficient strength. As well, you can just open a partially built road! There are utilities to be replaced, storm drains to be hooked back up as well as streetlighting and signal conduits. It's more than just backfill and asphalt.
Someone earlier was complaining about the lack of crossings on Cambie but all the arterials and some collectors were always open: Marine Dr., 49th, 41st, KE, 19th, 16th, 12th, Broadway and 2nd.
Given the budget constraints - it was the best delivery method. People need to stop talking about boring from KE because that would have more than tripled the cost of the stations and tunnel in that section and made the project unfeasible.
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The major arterials may have had temporary bridges built over the Cambie trench, but ALL off them had net lane reductions. I took Broadway buses (9 and 99) across Cambie during the entire time of construction, and always wondered why Broadway's 6 lanes were squeezed into 4 lanes at Cambie. 12th Ave's 4 lanes were reduced to 2 lanes (one in each direction), 41st was reduced from 6 lanes to 4, and 6th/4th/2nd Ave was also reduced from 4 lanes to 2.
The diamond lanes on Broadway were an attempt to get the 9 and 99 running faster along Broadway, but with the Cambie bottleneck the running times between Oak and Main actually increased by up to 4 minutes.
From an engineering viewpoint there were no issues why the temporary bridges crossing Cambie couldn't have kept the full number of vehicle lanes and sidewalks, but because it was a PPP project, saving bucks at any cost was part of the mandate.