Langley Township voted to spend $23.7 million to continue widening 208th Street, a project that will substantially finish the process of four-laning the busy Willoughby road.
The funding will go to construction of half a mile of road between 72nd Avenue and 76th Avenues, and will include upgrading water pipelines to the area, expanding storm sewers, and installing a new traffic light at 76th.
Construction work is currently underway on the southern portion of the road, between 72nd Avenue and 64th Avenue, including the Willoughby connector.
The project is being funded by a mixture of borrowing and development cost charges (DCCs), which are paid by developers who have been building new homes in the area.
When fully built out, the project will mean 208th Street will be between four and six lanes along its length through Willoughby, and will have new streetlights, sidewalks, multi-use paths and bicycle lanes, and upgrades traffic signals and pedestrian crossings.
There was little debate as the latest phase of the project was funded, but Councillor Michael Pratt asked about the handful of pieces of 208th Street north of 76th Avenue which have not yet been widened.
Those stretches of road could be widened with funding from DCCs, or the Township could wait for development to take place.
The widening of 208th Street has been a political issue for years. As the neighbourhood grew at a rapid pace, 208th, with its connection to the Willowbrook shopping areas and Langley City in the south, and an overpass to Walnut Grove in the north, became one of the major north-south corridors.
However, it was widened piecemeal. As developers built housing and commercial projects along the road, they would widen and upgrade the portion in front of their property only.
This was Township policy because it avoided the expense of building out large segments of major roads all at once.
This left the northern part of 208th Street in a patchwork state, with anywhere from two to three to four lanes finished. Most of it is now widened to four lanes, though there are still a few pieces that are not. One undeveloped property north of 80th remains vacant after its co-owners spent years suing each other instead of building.
The properites in the southern section of the road, particularly from 76th to 72nd, did not immediately develop. It remains a two-lane road with ditches along much of the east side and decades-old asphalt pedestrian paths.
Councillors Kim Richter and Margaret Kunst voted against the funding.
PREVIOUSLY: Widening of Langley’s 208th Street moves forward