Willoughby residents wanting to cross busy 200 Street by foot or by bike are getting a $3 million overpass.
With a $1 million infusion from the province's Local/Motion initiative, work on the crossing will begin immediately at 200 Street and 68 Avenue.
On Wednesday afternoon, Langley MLA Mary Polak, Aldergrove-Fort Langley MLA Rich Coleman, along with Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon, presented Township Mayor Kurt Alberts with a $1 million cheque towards the project.
"I'm a cyclist myself so I can tell you, when it's built, they [cyclists] will use it," said Falcon.
The overpass will connect major greenways that follow the natural gas pipeline from Surrey to the west side of 200 Street in the Gordon neighbourhood, across to the the southeast neighbourhood of Routley.
"The alignment goes to 203 Street, all the way to the Costco, passing by the playground there," said Alberts at the announcement.
The Township actually had a crosswalk at 68 Avenue but had to remove it because of the danger to pedestrians. "The crosswalk location was at the bottom of the hill so it was closed for safety reasons," he said.
"There is only $10 million a year for Local/Motion projects. We are very pleased we received $1 million of it. That's thanks to the hard work of Rich [Coleman] and Mary [Polak]," Alberts said. "The province was interested in this project because it connects Surrey's green-ways to Langley with a focus on cycling."
The Township spent $600,000 acquiring land around the overpass, and construction of the concrete overpass will cost $2.4 million.