$25-million rehabilitation project on the way for a key river crossing

Work to prevent the Agassiz-Rosedale Bridge from falling into the Fraser River in the event of an earthquake will get underway this summer, but construction won’t see the increasingly busy link widened to 4 lanes, something residents had hoped for more than 60 years ago.

The bridge—which connects Agassiz and Harrison to Chilliwack, Highway 1, and a steady stream of tourists—has been in need of upgrades for several years. In 2017, the province committed $36 million for seismic upgrades to both the Agassiz-Rosedale Bridge and the Rosedale Overpass. In 2019, the government used part of those funds to upgrade one of the piers holding up the bridge, preventing it from sliding into the Fraser River.

The Ministry of Transportation recently told The Current that more seismic upgrades will be happening this summer, with a budgeted cost of $25 million. The rehabilitation will include joint replacements and repairs to steel parts, as well as coating all the steel to prevent it from deteriorating. Construction is expected to take 3 years to finish.

The steel structure that holds up the Agassiz-Rosedale Bridge was built in 1956, and cost $4.5 million to build ($44.5 million in today’s dollars). The bridge was one of 24 to open that year, and marked a major change for residents and tourists who no longer needed to wait for the ferry to travel to Rosedale and Chilliwack.

(The Agassiz ferry it had replaced was overhauled and moved to Langley to begin the Albion ferry service, which connected Langley and Maple Ridge from 1957 until the opening of the Golden Ears Bridge in 2009.)

But the Agassiz-Rosedale Bridge, for all its opening fanfare, had its disappointments.

In 1956, a week before the Agassiz-Rosedale Bridge was scheduled to open, The Province reported that residents were a "little bitter that the government, while engaged in the $4,000,000 project, didn’t go ‘all out’ and provide a 4-lane span that would take care of traffic needs well into the future."

Kent's population has increased by 10% in the last 5 years, while the bridge is also heavily used by tourists; summer weekends can see 50% more traffic than those in the winter.

The District of Kent’s 2040 Official Community Plan echoes the same sentiments from the 1956 Province article. The district wants to see the province replace the bridge with a 4-lane structure that has separate cycling and pedestrian lanes, or at least have the lamp posts relocated and separate cycling and walking paths included.

The upcoming construction to the Agassiz-Rosedale Bridge won’t bring those changes to the heavily used crossing. Instead, the Ministry of Transportation said it will be "a rehabilitation project only, intended to extend the service life of the structure."

The average expected useful life for bridges in BC, according to Statistics Canada, is between 52 and 57 years. The Agassiz-Rosedale Bridge is currently 65 years old. Someday, whether now or later, it will need to be replaced.