Will the Massey Tunnel replacement bridge encourage urban sprawl?
From our stalwart London correspondent Michael Mortenson come this interview recorded on the Early Edition of CBC News on December 18, 2015.
The Massey Tunnel which currently crossses the Fraser River linking Richmond with Delta is to be replaced with a ten lane bridge at a cost of about 3.5 billion dollars. Ken Cameron, the former manager of policy and regional planning at Metro Vancouver, has weighed in.
And Ken says it succinctly: “Ever since we turned our backs to freeways in the late 1960’s, we’re not trying to build our way out of congestion…Putting a big new facility like this runs directly counter to all of those objectives (of) the City of Vancouver, the City of Richmond, and other municipalities.”
While Transportation Minister Todd Stone notes that the new bridge will cut millions of hours of vehicle idling time, Cameron notes that roads create more traffic and more congestion. “Looking at the region’s transportation system as a whole is key to reducing congestion. That means investing in public transportation as well as road infrastructure”.
You can review the list of “ten things you may not know” about the new bridge (which is still unnamed) at the link below. There is a link to the CBC audio interview too, by clicking the title on the page.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/massey-tunnel-replacement-bridge-1.3367368
Will the bridge encourage sprawl? Of course. That’s its purpose.
The provincial claims of reduced idling are true of course for a period of time, but like basically everything this provincial government says and does, it solves a short term problem and ignores long term consequences. I have yet to find one example anywhere ever that shows widening highways and building new bridges reduces congestion long term.
And he calls it visionary!
At least, those that didn’t like the idea of a referendum will be happy. No referendum this time. They listened.
The height of hypocrisy, as you well know that the government has ruled out any new transit funding without another referendum, again.
Ultimately, whether of not “sprawl” occurs will depend on the relevant municipalities and whether those projects involve the rezoning of farmland.
Look at Vancouver, it has refused to upzone the biggest transit hub outside downtown (Broadway & Commercial) for highrises. Likewise, Broadway & Cambie does have a dense highrise cluster either.
If the municipality doesn’t want development to occur in a particular location, it will zone accordingly.
Delta is focussing its highrise densification in North Delta (near Scott Road), rather than Tsawwassen and Ladner.
Surrey already has an established community around Morgan Creek, including mixed use projects.
White Rock and South Surrey are gradually allowing the construction of midrises within their urbanized areas.
That densification is probably a prerequisite to getting some form of higher transit.
Typo – Broadway & Cambie “doesn’t”…
Looking at it alone from the perspective of sprawl (whether it will cause more, or relieve effects of past half-century of sprawl, which some may argue has been caused by the tunnel since 1959), is a simpleton’s exercise. There are many other factors to be considered.
Read the Business Case, including sensitivities. Look up cost-benefit if you need.
http://engage.gov.bc.ca/masseytunnel/files/2015/12/Business-Case-Oct-2015.pdf
And, the narrow and out-of-focus writer of the article again lazily repeats the error that the bridge is 3.5billion. No. The bridge is part of a large, integrated replacement and improvement project that stretches from Bridgeport Road in Richmond and involves all interchanges on Hwy 99 all the way to the USA border. Comment after your homework.
Alexis: “…involves all interchanges on Hwy 99 all the way to the USA border. Comment after your homework”
The project definition report says that the improvements go as far south as Highway 91. Not the US border. Are they moving the border? Or does someone else need to do some homework?
I did read the business case, I look forward to hearing the auditor generals take on it (I understand the office has said it will review the business case). It seems to be the flimsiest made up pile of……I was especially concerned with the summary dismisal of options less than 10 lanes without any real justification. I am pretty sure the auditor general will slam this project and its ‘business’ case as the white elephant it is.
Alexis,
I skimmed the report specifically for justification for 10 lanes, for a reference to induced demand, for information on operating costs over the life of the asset, on the finances of involving a private partner, and on the link between VMT and the price of fuel. I found very little to assuage my curiosity.
The justification for 10 lanes is continually couched in terms of congestion relief, yet there is little on projected traffic increases as the result of building a gargantuan traffic-delivery device. Induced demand is a standard measure in transportation planning and has the capacity to throw all preconceptions about road building (e.g. building more will relieve congestion beyond temporarily) and financing.
The justification for 10 lanes was based on the base case of the over-congested four lane tunnel, and on a very limited analysis of six or eight lanes. Well, no one will argue with replacing an old tunnel designed and built in the age before seismic engineering criteria was mandated. But its 80,000 peak daily vehicle count is just above the Burrard Bridge just shy of 70,000 with five lanes, and no one in their right mind will propose a 10-laner replacement over False Creek. Yes, there are alternate nearby routes to Burrard, but there are also alternate modes of transport.
The statement “Eight lanes would result in congestion on the first day” (p.17) does not provide an analysis of all the modeling used, on vehicle type comparisons (e.g. commercial vs car), or even mentions whether bus queue-jumping lanes on the ramps to the bridge, or much increased transit service to communities in the service area were even factored in to the estimates of bridge traffic. How many of the vehicles on the first day will be single-occupant cars and SUVs? The old Port Mann rang in at 70+% SOVs. What gain is anticipated to justify going from 4-lanes / 80,000 to 10-lanes? 150,000 vehicles? 200,000? The silent accommodation of very high suburban SOV traffic will guarantee that commercial traffic will have a hard time again once the bridge lanes inevitably fill up.
I hardly think there is any evidence that there are that many suburban commuters south of the Fraser, certainly not enough to justify 10 lanes. And 8-lanes may also be overly generous when you consider the incredible efficiencies that transit possesses to alleviate road space. I suggest that bus queue-jumper lanes and possibly truck queue-jumpers with two shared HOV & transit lanes would justify a 6-lane bridge, 8-lanes at best. That’s still two better than the tunnel.
Congestion may be perceived as Evil Incarnate by traffic engineers and road builders, but it also acts as a traffic control device. Single occupant suburban commuters will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid congestion, not to mention tolls and high fuel prices. But in a project like this, who can predict the price of fuel on the opening day in 2022? Two years ago the price of oil was almost triple what it is today. When the price of oil skyrocketed in 2008, vehicle km plunged. Now with a lower price (world wholesale, not so much local retail), VKT are increasing. It’s a rocking ferry on the stormy Salish Sea. Oil supply and demand is a long story, but once it starts to inevitably escalate again (probably helped by international carbon taxes) there is a very real risk not even touched in the Risk Assessment that the minimum traffic needed to make the tolls profitable to the private operator will not materialize. Perhaps by then we will have a more transit-friendly government in place.
The statement that the massive, $3.5B concrete structure and freeways expansion on either end with inevitably induced additional traffic will lower GHG emissions is pure codswallop. Traffic always, without fail, expands to fill and empty space as long as people can afford to drive, and therein traffic and emissions will increase over time. Moreover, peer-reviewed studies by professionals comparing actual emissions in walkable, transit-rich dense communities (even with concrete towers) to sprawling, low density car-dependent communities serviced by massive freeways proves the former is vastly more efficient. In fact, it’s night and day. Add tolls and fuel price creep, and you’ve got a white elephant, a provincial debt sinkhole, and an asset that is another nail in the climate change rhetoric coffin of the government.
The report is so last century.
I think everyone will agree that there will be an increase in traffic on day one…even with tolls. My brain boggles with the thought that anyone out there believes it will justify going from 4 lanes to 10. Did nothing get learned from the Golden Ears or Port Mann? I actually think with tolls a 6 lane option will be fine…or a 7 lane option where the extra lane is reserved for transit and goes only in the peak direction (much like the tunnel works today, but just for transit).
MB, what causes you to think that people raising a family might consider living in concrete towers, when the overwhelming evidence, peer-reviewed, says they don’t? Ask Brent.
You are obviously ignoring empty-nesters and the aged who cannot maintain a house and yard anymore. Where’s your peer-reviewed study to counter that?
There are many alternatives to detached homes on large lots and towers. Tens of thousands of ground-accessed family-oriented townhouses have been built already. Tens of thousands more will be built. There is potential for hundreds of thousands more attached, low-rise single-family or multi-family homes in the Metro with more efficient land planning.
I will add that THs located in even moderately dense walkable communities are not subsidized. On the other hand, low density suburban lots and detached houses do not pay for the public services they consume, and family budgets there usually underestimate or even ignore the cost of personal transportation when calculating housing prices.
What really sticks in urbanist’s craw is the seemingly total ignorance of MoTH traffic engineers to grasp integrated transportation planning. Here we get contorted semi-justifications in the business case for an inelegant 10-lane monster bridge designed for local “commercial” (read: suburban voter) traffic in a complete vacuum of transit planning.
In Northern Europe they have a bridge that provides the only physical connection between all three Scandanavian nations and the European continent serving tens of millions of people and billions in commercial activity. The Oresund Bridge also provides a very quick connection between two major cities: Copenhagen and Malmo.
The number of lanes? Four (4), integrated with a lower deck for vastly more efficient rail.
This is what the product of fully integrated transportation planning looks like:
http://static-v3.raileurope-world.com/local/cache-gd2/1d256a33da1f30d7d73a908cd874e2bf.jpg
MB, you need not worry about “fuel price creep”, as you call it. Today’s 4 cylinder cars generate more horsepower than yesterdays 6’s. Fuel efficiency keeps growing and only people like Jeff Rubin and other ecopalypse adherents keep joking about $250 oil, even when it’s now neither running out, nor expensive, especially now we can hop over to Point Roberts, Sumas or Blaine and pay 50 cents a litre for gas and avoid giving TransLink more money to pay themselves with. We might have to pay $30 a week to cross the bridge but we can save $70 a week with a 20 minute trip over the border.
Electric cars are becoming more popular too, even developers and planners are driving them now. In the future Site C will power them. It’s all good.
I recommend Rubin’s latest book, ‘The Carbon Bubble’, where he addresses the profound effects of LOW oil prices on the economy, and the stupidity of overdependence on volatile commodities. He also admits his mistake of predicting $225 oil when it was already at $148.
He had an interesting idea where he thought selling our water to the US was a great idea, but in the form of grain, produce and livestock that took advantage of the northward march of warming farm land. The trouble with that was he ignored soil, which is very thin and forest-based north of Saskatoon compared to the richer grassland soils further southward, that is, the soil that’s left after a century of industrial farming tirned it into powder.
He also did not adequately address the fact that the prairie rivers have lost, in some cases, 30% of their average flows due to the massive loss of their source glacial ice mass due to global warming. According to one hydrological report, Calgary will see 50% of its water sources disappear by 2050. Maybe we should allow pipelines to Coastal BC after all ….. to ship our excess rain water eastwards to the prairies.
….turned….
That is why we need road pricing.
@ Eric, you are still left with the cost burden of car ownership regardless of the fuel, the trillions in car support infrastructure, the legacy of deaths, injuries and litigation, and the impacts on land use and the environment.
I am glad to be paying a few bucks less for fuel in my efficient Japanese econobox, but will gladly park or sell it if the transit connections were made better. They are not, and they will never be as long as the province has local government by the short & curlies and treats cars lovingly, even at the great expense of future generations of taxpayers, while kicking transit and local control in the teeth.
My heart bleeds. TransLink has been kicked in the teeth. Their budget is down to $1.45 billion. Oh, poor babies.
As for the burden of car ownership; rest assured Justin will help us out. He’s not going to smash the Ontario auto industry. He’ll probably subsidize them to build more efficient vehicles and then pay us to buy them with bigger subsidies than we get now. And, when they become autonomous there’ll be fewer accidents. It’s all good.
I note that local democracy will never be fully reached without Christy’s blessing. Like that will ever happen. Despite your short-sighted hate-on for TransLink, surely you can agree that an elected regional government would be a good thing?
I also note that Trudeau appeared in Surrey and Vancouver during the election campaign at the sites for major transit projects. He never set foot near any major road, dam or LNG project sites. One of ministers also surmised out loud about paying a larger federal share for transit so that cities are limited to a referenda-free 10%, while another negotiated hard in Paris for a significant deal to limit emissions. Funding transit dovetails well with the government’s statements and policies so far.
Justin holds the cards, not Christy.
I wish Justin holds the cards. Problem is if Christy wants to build a white elephant just like the Port Mann and Golden Ears bridge was she can and all of us British Columbians will have to pay for it without federal contributions. That is the sad reality.
@ N, true, that.
However, I kinda like the idea of federal funding for transit. I think they should be welcomed to the table. At least the assets will be built even if the province still proceeds with road overkill.
Christy would be a fool to withhold provincial funds she previously promised for Metro transit if the feds don’t pony up for her excessive pet road projects, especially if the feds are picking up the largest share for transit.
Re: Ontario. It’s easy enough to add trains and buses to the manufacturing plant roster, maybe locate more plants out west in, say, Alberta to establish a permanent manufacturing base to make up for the actions of the idiots who bet the farm on oil.
There was a federal infrastructure fund promised in Justin’s campaign. Works for bridges. Just ask Montreal. New Champlain Bridge ($4.23 billion)
As for emissions, we all know how highly BC is lauded for our green electricity and our Carbon Tax. It’s the rest of Canada that will have to catch up.
With Chrysler being the largest employer in Brampton it’s virtually inconceivable that they would trash the nearly $2 billion upgrade to the plant that was made a few years ago and convert it to a train or a bus plant. That’s not what Chrysler builds and Justin isn’t going to nationalize it. Neither is this Liberal federal government going to build any plant anywhere to build transit vehicles. Ford hasn’t built a bus for over 70 years.
You’ll have to sit back and wait a few decades to even begin to dream of some socialist government production control in Canada. If it comes from Liberals it will start in Quebec and New Brunswick, long before anything happens in Alberta.
The Champlain Bridge is a federally owned bridge that has been salted to death and needs reconstruction. What’s indefensible is that the Liberals have promised to build Montreal a toll-free bridge at the same time.
Socialist government control? With that comical narrative the most insidious instrument of socialism ever imposed on civilization is ….the yellow line painted down the middle of the road. It divides people. It forces them into Left and Right constraints. There are serious consequences if you cross it. It paints society with one broad brushstroke.
Seriously, industries of all kinds beg for government grants and subsidies, and the reward is usually jobs and economic activity. The only difference with, say, building trains in Canada instead of cars is that the feds could obtain very deep unit price discounts in national-scale procurement contracts under a national transit plan, and share the costs with provinces and cities. Such high discounts are not available in singular projects in separate jurisdictions.
As Jean Chrétien might say, this is the way it works, you see. Expenditures from Ottawa have to be carefully weighed in popularity terms. Up until Jack Layton, Quebec has always been a strong base of Liberal support. This has to be regained. The Liberals made a campaign promise that they would not only pay the $4.23 billion (estimated) cost for the the new Champlain Bridge but it will be toll free.
The Ottawa Liberals will be calculating the values of future support from the Vancouver Vision machine and the Victoria, Clark administration machine and figuring out the appropriate dollar values, as well as the symbolic values and the timing values too.
That the transit referendum resoundingly failed, by a negative two-to-one vote, and the highest profile item was the Broadway subway, will not go unnoticed.
Is Gregor prepared to continue to support the federal Liberals at the expense of his old NDP brethren and is he bringing these brethren along with him? People are gonna want to know.
Well, the federal libs likely noted the plebiscite and decided to ignore it when they campaigned specifically on transit projects in the Metro. You are putting too much weight on a flawed, non-binding vote imposed on a highly selective jurisdiction and mode of transport.
Your precious vote doesn’t amount to a hill of beans next to an actual election.