A letter in today’s Sun:
Let public in on tunnel alternative
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As the son of the late George Massey after whom the George Massey Tunnel was named, I cannot allow our provincial government to mislead the public into believing we needed to build a high level bridge.
A tunnel makes more sense in the sandy soil conditions of the area. TEC Tunnel Engineering Consultants in Amersfoort, the Netherlands, met with the Department of Transportation in Victoria in 2014 and made a presentation on immersed tunnels and the suitability of this technology for the George Massey Tunnel Replacement project. They never heard back and the public never got an opportunity to review their proposal.
Is it because the B.C. government chose to ignore an alternative that might deter from their ability to industrialize the whole of the Lower Fraser River and benefit Port Metro Vancouver at the expense of the people and the ecosystem of the wetlands that sustains fish and wildfowl? The public deserves better.
DOUGLAS GEORGE MASSEY, Delta
Zero relevance. Zero. He has about the same stakeholder influence as if his family name was Bonaparte.
He “cannot allow” it? He thinks he’s inherited some sort of nobile peerage because his dad was a Socred MLA for 4 years (then lost re-election). Got passed over for Cabinet. Maybe we can find a dead-end street in Ladner and quip it Doug Massey.
Your headline is not entirely correct. In writings and twice during an interview over two years ago, Douglas George Massey said that nobody, including he, has a problem with a new crossing. He is just pleading for retention of the tunnel.
In the more than half a century since the tunnel was built in 1959 the population of the metropolitan region has more than tripled; 790,000 to over 2.3 million.
It does seem unusual and melodramatic that these little spurts of opposition are now arising after the three and a half years since the replacement of the tunnel was announced by the Premier.
Indeed it would be nice to know why a bridge is preferable over a tunnel. A tunnel would be less intrusive visually, and digging in sand is not that difficult as opposed say boring through rock like in Seattle (and then losing the drill).
Is it price ? Is it capacity ? Is it potential flooding ? Is it disruption while building / dredging ?
We should expect more disclosure of options by MoTI as taxpayers footing a $3B+ bill.
As such I appreciate this letter although of course the wording is a tad weird.
I would have like to see an options analysis for how much it would cost to extend the Cad line instead.
How far? Tsawwassen or South Surrey?
Oh, how would you cross the river?
Bridge could have or should have a rail spur for Canada line extension indeed !
But we need more roads and bridges too such as this one, Knight, Oak and a new one further east. Plus Patullo.
The most natural one is a new crossing at Boundary. Leading up from the new Highway 17 (SFPR), this would attract traffic from the USA that is heading up to Whistler and need not go through Vancouver. As well as traffic from Tsawwassen, Delta and South Surrey/White Rock that is heading for Burnaby and the North Shore. After traversing the southern water channel the connection to the Highway 91 already exists at Nelson Road. Here It would also collect traffic heading from Richmond and take it in a direct line to Burnaby and Metrotown, then on to North Shore too. This would greatly relieve Marine Drive, the Oak Street and the Knight bridges. A short jog further leads to another narrow crossing. Less than 500m., and a straight line connection to Boundary Road, immediately and conveniently located across the river. Right next to this crossing point is also the large and growing Burnaby Fraser Industrial Park and all the light industry and large distributors of this huge area.
When we consider that 1,600,00 vehicles were sold in Canada in 2015 and 6,000 were electric (one half of one percent of the total), we must realize that the reduction of congestion to mitigate noxious fumes from idling and crawling vehicles , is essential in our mission to reduce CO2 and pollution emissions.
At the above rate it looks like electric vehicles sales could increase 100 fold and still not even be half of the total. It’s going to take a few decades for these puppies to multiply.
Because you are thinking linearly. Economics has tipping points, where new technologies only make sense for early adopters, then suddenly the mainstream gets it.
Not many people want a Nissan Leaf or can afford a Tesla S. A car that is priced like the Leaf but is as versatile as the S is probably less than 2 years away. I’d be surprised of sales of EVs less than triple in 2017.
The N-S and E-W flow of vehicles indeed has to be improved in MetroVan. It irks me to no degree if they allow parking, for example on Granville or 76 Ave or many other 4 lane throughroads outside of 3-6pm as it severely reduces traffic flow. The congestion in Vancouver is man-made, specifically by the anti-car council in Vancouver. More transit and more bike lanes is not the only answer here but also less parking and add’l roads/bridges in select places.
We need more transit AND more bike lanes AND more roads/bridges !!
AND .. not either-or !
So how much of Vancouver’s land should be devoted to road / parking space? 45%? 66%? 89%? Where do you stop when building more roads inevitably builds more traffic congestion, and when the land is constrained and will never be expanded?
Perhaps we should fill in the ocean, say off Wreck Beach and build a 10-lane elevated freeway over your place to access the subdivisions.
I also would have much rather seen a Tilbury / No. 8 Rd / Boundary aligned project. The reduction in vehicle km travel would have been significant. Detouring to the existing alignments is a fairly significant portion of the distances travelled.
Induced demand. Building more roads/highways has never reduced congestion (and therefore idling etc) long term. We cannot keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results long term.
It does when there are tolls. Reducing the driven distance for the same trips also would reduce congestion.