Carlito Pablo’s report in the Georgia Straight:
New bridge ordered as Massey Tunnel traffic drops sharply
In 2008, daily vehicle traffic in the George Massey Tunnel was down 7.5 percent compared to 2004. It’s a figure that came out in a regional survey by TransLink. It’s also a number that transportation and land-use expert Gordon Price cited last year on his blog when the future of the tunnel was still being discussed. …
According to the former Vancouver city councillor, these are important premises in looking at the provincial government’s bid to build a new bridge to replace the George Massey Tunnel. The decision was made without any commitment to new investments in public transit in the Lower Mainland. …
Price pointed out that roads, bridges, and tunnels are essential parts of a transportation network that also includes transit. “You don’t fund them separately. You fund them together as part of a larger strategy,” he said. …
Premier Christy Clark has insisted that any new funding for transit in the Lower Mainland must be approved by voters in a referendum, a requirement not imposed on projects like the George Massey Tunnel’s bridge replacement.
Lots of comments with divergent views followed. (For those wondering about the 1965 data, it’s here.)
Mayor Lois Jackson of Delta was also on CBC Radio 1 today, supporting the construction of the bridge, and making a few other points:
- The tunnel is a provincial structure, not a regional one, and therefore a new bridge should not be subject to a local referendum or included in the one on TransLink funding.
- The bridge should not be tolled unless other bridges in the region are too.
But wouldn’t that mean, if all the bridges were tolled – including the ones owned and managed by TransLink, like the Pattullo – that regional users would effectively be paying for a provincial asset, namely the Massey?
The mayor believes Massey would only need to have a toll priced under a Loonie if bridges like the Oak, Knight and Pattullo were also charged the same. So unlike the Port Mann, tolls on the Massey would not cover costs, the difference being made up by charges on those bridges (or a regional road-pricing system) that disproportionately hit Metro taxpayers, who would also be paying provincial taxes to cover highway infrastructure elsewhere in the region – and throughout the province.
Wouldn’t it be reasonable then to include Massey as part of the referendum package, along with transit, that Metro citizens would have a chance to vote on? Why some without the others?
Best of all, it would address the issue I lay out in the quote below. Bridges (likely Massey and the Pattullo) and transit (to reduce vehicle demand on the bridges) would be part of the same package, requiring the planners at both provincial and regional levels to consider how more transit could affect the scale of the new bridge. If, after all, we could save considerable dollars or have lower tolls with a smaller bridge, while at the same addressing road congestion and providing better transit service, why wouldn’t we? To do otherwise – to build a bigger bridge than we actually need – is surely a form of government waste as significant as any other.
Wouldn’t the Mayor of Delta agree?
There is, further more, a corollary to the recorded diminishing traffic in the Massey tunnel since 2008 that has to do with our dependence on fresh produce trucked up on I5, and subsequently Canada 99, from California and Sonora.
The US is lagging behind in maintenance of highway infrastructure, i.e. Skagit River Bridge, as Congress seems unable to service an ever increasing national debt and its current refusal to address the issue seriously.
It is time we started looking out for our own stuff . . .
http://members.shaw.ca/webmaster-nonpareil/Wellcox.pdf
. . . including the ALR, especially the threatened Spetifore property.
First off, Joe/Jane Commuter doesn’t give a hoot whether a bridge or tunnel is owned by the Province, Translink, Vancouver, or Bill Gates.
Second, to all those questioning the need for the GMT replacement — have you attempted to use the tunnel during the peak hours (in either direction — the GMT is one of the few crossings where traffic is congested in BOTH directions during both peaks)? For example, in the afternoon peak, the north-bound single lane has FIVE lanes merging into it (two from 99 NB, two from 17 EB, one from 17 WB.
Third, the GMT is woefully sub-standard. I was nearly impaled by a piece of flying debris from a large waste bin as it flew off the truck after contacting the tunnel ceiling. And those narrow lanes give you zero space to avoid any hazards.
Yes, we need to continue to build up our transit infrastructure. But we cannot ignore the crumbling road/bridge/tunnel works, not if we want to continue to be able to move goods around the region, and from the ports to their markets.
I agree 100% that the funding of all major regional transportation infrastructure must be taken as a “package”. Consideration of these elements in a piece-meal approach is fraught with danger. All the cards should be on the table. “Here’s what we need:…. here’s what it will cost: … and here’s how it will be paid for: .,..” Link the plan to economic prosperity, quality of life, environmental issues, and whatever other big-picture benefits you can think of, round up the coalition of supporters, and bring on the referendum.
Give the people the choice: “Here’s what the future could look like…”, but vote no, and you’re saying that what we have is good enough to carry us through for the next 30 years.
Steveston +1
If the tunnel is indeed that unsafe, I personally prefer a bridge for many reasons than a relacement tunnel, having experienced that nasty thing far too often.
But for the life of me I can’t understand why this particular bridge needs to be more than 4 lanes or at most 6, and only if that includes HOV/transit lanes. Renderings look more like 10.
Replacing aging and possibly unsafe infrastructure when necessary is one thing and is generally acceptable to me. Stimulating auto-oriented sprawl is quite another and a losing proposition in the long run. Combined with the Province’s impended “core review” of the ALR, among other responsibilities, makes this look like nothing more than a real estate development nightmare in the making.
Anti-growth Delta and its pro-bridge/anti-referendum-on-it mayor Jackson – better look out what you wish for. Goodbye agriculture land, hello redeveloped Spetifore Lands!
And much, much more.
Jackson is confused. If we toll the Oak, A Liang and Knight, Plus the Deas Island one, then that would mean that people gonig to delta would need to pay two tolls! And who would want to do that? So if people finally realize that going to Delta isn’t worth the money, and developers understand this too, they won’t invest in Delta! Plus, as noted above, because most of the massey tunnel users are going to Vancouver, a toll on two bridges would cost her own citizens more. And don’t forget the fact that a toll on all bridges would mean fewer people going down to Richmond (even though grocery shopping is cheaper there), and fewer people going south of Richmond.
Congestion pricing IS good for the region. But it’ll mean fewer people travelling across rivers, and more centralized development.
It is just goofy to equate the Massey Tunnel with the TL referendum. Goofy. Vehicularly speaking, it has no traction.
One is a complex, multi-governmental system that has huge implications (positive or negative) for dozens of communities, thousands of property owners, tens of thousands of workers (direct and indirect), and which creates enormous choices that will shape the region for decades. It involves many kilometres of infrastructuce, plant, equipment, machinery, labour, tax regimes, operating organizations, etc.
The other is daylighting 750 metres of pavement. In situ. Come on.
This project is far more than “daylighting 750 metres of pavement.” It has widespread and profound implications for the region. And it is clearly a case of the provincial government providing preferential access to funds for one mode of transportation while purposefully starving another mode.
Daylighting pavement? What about the 99 corridor improvements. When asked how much it cost Christy said well the the Port Mann was $830 and the rest of the highway was a couple of billion. 750m no, try 30 km!
Steveston writes:
“the GMT is woefully sub-standard. I was nearly impaled by a piece of flying debris from a large waste bin as it flew off the truck after contacting the tunnel ceiling”
So,according his logic, the bridge in the picture below is also substandsard
http://ww3.hdnux.com/photos/02/46/56/682926/3/628×471.jpg
Franck Ducote agree on it…but in fact outside BC,it is commonly accepted that when a vehicle is too high for a bridge/tunnel, the problem is one for the vehicle not for the bridge/tunnel…
it is the case in the picture where the bus driver has been fined…
…and so far, when come flying debris…the Port Mann bridge is much more substandard than the Massey tunnel
Proponent of a new tunnel still have to come with a solid and unbiaised business case…
in lack of it, what we see is just fear mongering on the tune “I almost died…”, or based on narcissist feeling such as “I am stuck in the traffic and don’t like it”…
Tessa – thanks for the accurate rebuttal to an over-simplistic comment. There will be widespread ramifications to/ from a new crossing of this size.
In terms of governance and process, yet again, how did this guesstimated $2-3,000,000,000 ( a lot of zeroes, huh?) jump the regional queue and dodge an, ahem, referendum?
The provincial government follows it’s own process that intentionally ignores everyone else. Regional plans based on decades of research and public consultation don’t matter to them. Their transportation mindset is permanently stuck in the middle of the last century when it was all about building more roads and opening more land for development.
Extending Canada Line from Bridgeport or Brighouse would cost about $1.2B, far less than the $3B+ for the bridge + highway improvements. Canada Line was about $100M/km. Put in a big parking lot in Ladner. Many Stevestonians and Ladnerites could train into work and lower carbon consumption, and make it easier for trucks to use the tunnel.