Metro mayors play along in helping NDP delay Massey replacement, again
Credit to Author: Stephen Snelgrove| Date: Fri, 04 Oct 2019 01:08:31 +0000
VICTORIA — Transportation Minister Claire Trevena was completely satisfied Wednesday, when a task force of Metro Vancouver mayors recommended that the George Massey Tunnel be replaced with another tunnel.
“Metro, having been consulted, wants a tunnel,” she declared. “We’ll take that.”
Take it? I am amazed she didn’t send each member of the task force a bottle of champagne or offer to carve their names into the tunnel portal.
The recommendation dovetailed perfectly with her government’s political interest.
The New Democrats were looking for support for their decision to kill the 10-lane bridge Massey replacement project inherited from the B.C. Liberals.
One of the main options considered by the task force was an eight-lane bridge. The mayors recognized that replacing a 10-lane bridge with an eight-lane one at probably greater cost, would leave everyone looking ridiculous.
Instead they opted for an eight-lane tunnel, arguing it was preferable in most ways to any kind of bridge. That was good news for Trevena and her colleagues for a second reason.
By killing the 10-lane Massey replacement bridge in 2017, the New Democrats created about $3.5 billion worth of room in the government capital plan, which they promptly used up for other purposes.
Keeping the election promise to kill the tolls on the Port Mann meant shifting $3.3 billion in self-supporting debt (i.e. supported by tolls) to the taxpayer-supported category in the provincial accounts. The new government also committed $1.4 billion to replace the Pattullo Bridge.
The New Democrats have since added billions more to the capital plan. Just last month, Finance Minister Carole James approved another 19 capital projects, plus upward revisions in the budgets for several others, totalling $3 billion in all.
With all these NDP-supported capital projects contributing to the provincial debt, B.C. is already approaching a threshold that might draw a warning from the credit rating agencies.
On that expectation, the government probably couldn’t afford to approve replacing the Massey with either a tunnel or a bridge — both options having been costed in the $3 billion to $5 billion range, according to Trevena.
Enter the mayors with their decision to choose the tunnel in favour of the bridge.
The eight-lane bridge would have been relatively straightforward in terms of planning and approvals, much of that work having already been done for the 10-lane version.
“The environmental assessment is expected to be the least complex, as much, but not all, of the assessment would be similar to the previous 10-lane bridge,” according to a technical evaluation prepared for the task force.
Whereas much more work would have to be done to assess the impact of the preferred option, entailing as it did the depositing of an eight-lane tunnel on the bed of the Fraser River.
“It would require around one kilometre of tunnel, a large staging area and removal of 1.5 million cubic meters of salt- contaminated soil during construction,” said the technical evaluation.
“It would have the greatest environmental impact during construction as the approaches would require excavation on both sides of the river and the river bottom trenched to hold the tunnel.
“Ground densification for seismic resistance would be required over the full length of the tunnel including within the river.
“The environmental assessment is expected to be the most complex due to the in-river and riverbank work. Construction would be limited around a six-month window each year and would likely require two or more construction seasons.
“Under the new federal Fisheries Act, temporary disturbance to the river would be assessed and will require habitat offsets. The extent of the habitat offsets has not been determined.”
So: Removal of 1.5 million cubic metres of contaminated soil. Two or more seasons of construction. Ground densification. Disturbance of riverbanks and fish habitat.
Versus: minimum disturbance of the river, much of the environmental assessment already completed, and what was rated the “lowest” risk of any of the options for construction.
(The transportation ministry, in trying to rustle up as many objections as possible to the bridge, fretted about its “shading” impacts. As if some of the mayors might be out there working on their tans.)
Still the mayors went with what sounded like the more onerous option in terms of environmental assessment, all the while pretending that this was by way of expediting the replacement project.
“We have been going on about this for 10 years,” said Delta Mayor George Harvie. “We’ve got to get going on it.” Chiming agreement was Richmond’s Malcolm Brodie: “We need to stop dithering and get it done.”
Trevena picked up the theme as well: “It’s been far too long. We’ll look at that (recommendation) with a bit more consultation and be able to move pretty quickly to a business case by next year.”
A bit more consultation? The business case won’t be completed for another year at the earliest. Then according to her own ministry, it will take at least three years for environmental assessment, followed by five years of construction.
Or, to put it another way, at least another four years will pass before they even get around to starting construction on the replacement.
The key to understanding any task force is figuring out what is the actual task. In this case, it was providing the government with a pretext for further delay on the Massey replacement.
The mayors understood the task all too well, and gave the New Democrats precisely what they wanted.
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