The City of Surrey’s engineering department is seeking council’s authorization to proceed with the procurement of a design to extend 72 Avenue eastward from 152 Street to Highway 15 (176 Street) in anticipation of increased traffic volumes in coming years.
Four scenarios for the project range from $95 million to $158 million.
“I don’t know my preference yet, but I do think that we absolutely need to have more east-west connection in the city,” Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke told the Now-Leader. “And so this road will be something that will be significantly helpful in moving traffic. I don’t think that anybody that moves around in Surrey would question the fact that we do have traffic problems that we’ve never seen. In the last decade it’s just gotten worse all the time.”
Last May council directed city staff to assess the feasibility, costs, benefits and the impacts of extending 72 Avenue from 152 Street east to Highway 15 (176 Street). The study was expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2024 and then be put before council for consideration.
Results of that study, coming before council on Monday, March 11, recommends that “if and only if” council decides to move ahead with design procurement, that it also directs city staff to change the Bear Creek Connector’s designation from a major road to a greenway corridor for pedestrian and cyclists, designate as a truck route 72 Avenue between 152 Street to Highway 15 (176th), has staff enter discussions with TransLink to include that stretch of 72 Avenue in its Major Road Network, and also to initiate applications “including non-farm use applications if necessary, to the Agricultural Land Commission for the 72 Avenue corridor extension between 152 Street and Highway 15.”
READ ALSO: Surrey looks to expand 72 Avenue east from 152 Street to 176 Street
A corporate report by Scott Neuman, Surrey’s general manager of engineering, indicates plans are in the works to widen two segments of 72 Avenue – 144 Street to 152 Street and Fraser Highway to 188 Street – as part of a 10-Year Servicing Plan. That segment between 152 Street and Highway 15 is not included in that plan or identified on the City’s Road Classification Map.
“However, on May 22, 1875, the British Columbia Gazette established a 20-metre wide road corridor for the 72 Avenue corridor between 152 Street and Highway 15,” Neuman noted.
Locke echoed that this was always planned to be a road. “It is something I think we’re going to take a serious look at and it’s not definitive, but do I support building roads and making transportation easier? Absolutely, we have to do that. They call it a gazetted road.
“So we’re just getting to it now,” she chuckled.
During the feasibility study, he added, city staff did an agricultural impact assessment, geotechnical screening, environmental site reviews, topographical surveys, an archaeological screening review, traffic analysis, and consulted local property owners and farmers as well as the Agricultural and Food Policy Committee.
“This information has informed the development of functional designs scenarios for the 72 Avenue corridor project. This report summarizes the results of the feasibility study and functional design scenarios developed,” Neuman explained.
The stretches of 72 Avenue between Scott Road and 152 Street, and from Fraser Highway to 196 Street, are classified as arterial road.
“Staff have recently developed high level traffic modelling forecasts for the following land-use/populations timelines and scenarios to assess the impacts of the 72 Avenue extension,” Neuman reported.
The traffic analysis is sobering. Anticipating daily traffic volumes in 2050 compared to those in 2022, with and without the 72 Avenue expansion. It looks at four stretches of road.
First up is 88 Avenue from 152 Street to Highway 10, which in 2022 on average saw 12,500 vehicles each day. By 2050, with the 72 Avenue expansion, that’s forecast to swell to 17,500 (a 56 per cent increase) and without, to 19,500 (40 per cent increase).
Next, it considered 64 Avenue from 152 Street to Highway 15, which on average saw 27,000 vehicles per day. By 2050, with the 72 Avenue expansion that’s expected to increase to 24,900 (by eight per cent) and without, to 36,600 (by 36 per cent).
Looking at Highway 10, from 152 Street to Highway 15, this stretch of road in 2022 saw 47,300 vehicles daily but by 2050, with the 72 Avenue expansion, that’s anticipated to grow to 50,000 (a six per cent increase) and without, to 53,300 (for a 13 per cent increase).
If built, the 72 Avenue expansion is expected to see 37,300 vehicles daily.
All told, the total trips for all these sections of road combined were 86,800 vehicles daily in 2022 but in 2050 that’s expected to be 109,400 without the 72 Avenue expansion project and 129,700 including it.
If council proceeds with this, a design contract would be awarded in May, with the design taking place between then and Spring 2025. During this time, there’d be public engagement, regulatory would be initiated in August, a second round of public engagement in Spring 2025, property acquisitions from May to September 2025 followed by a pre-load placement contract awarded on council’ approval, securing all necessary regulatory permitting and property, pre-load placement and settlement between Fall 2025 to 2028 and finally roadway construction from 2028 to 2030.
Of the four design scenarios presented, the cheapest at $95 million would see a two-lane narrow road built, similar to Colebrook Road. The second scenario, at $132 million, features two lanes with a two-way left-turn lane while the third scenario, at a cost of $138 million, is a four-lane road with a shoulder. Neuman noted this one would have a “direct impact” on 17 properties along the road corridor. The fourth scenario, with a construction cost anticipated at $158 million, involves a four-lane multi-modal corridor.