Here’s a flashback for you from the 1964 pages of the Delta Optimist newspaper.
This photo shows George Massey paying the final toll for the Deas Island Tunnel. Also on hand was the colourful highways minister “Flying” Phil Gaglardi.
In May 1959, the new crossing saw its first vehicles, opening the door to easier access to the rest of the Lower Mainland.
The tunnel replaced Ladner's ferry service to Richmond, which had been operating for almost 45 years.
It was in 1956 when the Social Credit government announced a tunnel would be built, climaxing years of hard work by the Lower River Fraser Crossing Improvement Association, which at its peak had a membership of well over 400. The group's vice-president was Massey, who first visualized Delta having a tunnel when he moved here in the mid-1930s.
Fast forward almost six decades and tolls haven’t returned to the tunnel, although the regional district is now exploring so-called “distance-based” pricing. It includes drivers paying a higher rate to pass through certain Lower Mainland “congestion points” which has the tunnel at the top of the list.
