July 25, 2025
RED FM News Desk
The debate over the Pattullo Bridge replacement project has been reignited by Harman Bhangu, the BC Conservative transportation critic, who recently criticized the new four-lane design on a podcast.
During the June 26, 2025, episode of the Coastal Front podcast, Bhangu, who is the MLA for Langley-Abbotsford, discussed various transportation and infrastructure issues in B.C. with host Andrew Johns.
When asked by Johns which provincial transportation projects he would “shelve” if he had no other choice, Bhangu responded, “Something unpopular, but the Pattullo Bridge.” He questioned, “Why are we going to replace four lanes with four lanes? Makes no sense to me, and that is why I would say that would be one of the ones that was shelved.”
He elaborated, describing how inexperienced truck drivers often need to use both lanes to safely cross the current bridge due to its narrowness.
Bhangu suggested that the new bridge could have been designed differently. “But the way this design is, it needed another lane. We could have had a lane that connected right onto Columbia Street (in downtown New Westminster), and you didn’t have to take that U-turn every time.”
He later clarified that his intention wasn’t to halt the project entirely, but rather to suggest it should have been designed as a six-lane bridge from the outset.
The discussion of four lanes versus six has been an ongoing debate for years.
New Westminster residents have frequently argued against a six-lane design, citing the lack of space on their side of the bridge to route traffic through predominantly residential areas.
Conversely, Surrey residents and the City of Surrey’s mayor have advocated for six lanes. In 2024, Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke famously called replacing the four-lane Pattullo Bridge with another four-lane bridge “absurd.”
BC’s Minister of Transportation, Mike Farnworth, strongly defended the current design. “This is a brand new, state-of-the-art bridge, when you look at it right next to the old Pattullo Bridge, where trucks go into the oncoming lane because it’s so narrow, to suggest that a project should be shelved or that it’s poorly designed, is simply insane,” Farnworth stated.
Farnworth acknowledged that for the new bridge to have six lanes, “significant work” would be required in New Westminster, potentially causing traffic to halt as vehicles transitioned from the bridge into the city. He concluded, “The reality is the new bridge is bigger, wider, safer, well-designed, and traffic will flow much more smoothly and safely than on the existing Pattullo Bridge.”