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EDITORIAL: Lane closures on Marine Drive are a necessary growing pain

Take a deep breath, North Shore commuters. This is going to pinch. Starting on Tuesday, the Mosquito Creek Bridge on Marine Drive will be reduced to one lane in either direction for the first five months of the bridge replacement project.
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Take a deep breath, North Shore commuters. This is going to pinch. Starting on Tuesday, the Mosquito Creek Bridge on Marine Drive will be reduced to one lane in either direction for the first five months of the bridge replacement project.

The city is urging everyone to find alternate routes like West First Street, Highway 1 or Larson Road for east-west travel.

No doubt, this will be a frustration to the drivers of the 24,000 vehicles per day that cross the bridge, and the 50,000 people who cross it on transit. And it will have knock-on effects around the rest of our constrained transportation network.

But there’s no point in sulking about the project. Bridges, unfortunately, much like hips after almost 70 years of wear and tear, sometimes simply have to be replaced.

It’s just a matter of how we’re going to get around in the meantime.

Thankfully, just 750 metres to the south is the Spirit Trail, one of the most picturesque and leisurely multi-use trails in the Lower Mainland. The people who choose that as their alternate route are going to end up feeling pretty smart about it.

We want to see the RCMP out eagerly ticketing any drivers of heavy trucks who ignore the detour rules.

And under no circumstances do we want to hear about drivers taking their frustrations out on the flaggers and construction workers out there doing the job.

With some extra planning, a bit of co-operation and a lot of patience, we’re going to get through this with a piece of infrastructure that will, hopefully, still be in use when the children of today are having their hips replaced.

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