‘TUNNEL TO NOWHERE’
$295M project’s value debated
In the nearly three years it took crews to build Calgary’s controversial $295-million airport tunnel, citizens received regular and detailed updates on construction progress.
From excavation to concrete pouring, key milestones and deadlines for the six-lane-wide, 620-metre-long tunnel were celebrated before thousands attended a party marking the opening of a project that council narrowly approved in 2011.
When Calgarians lined up at 5 a.m. on May 25, 2014, to drive through the completed tunnel, officials estimated 15,000 cars a day would soon do the same, a number projected to grow to around 30,000 daily vehicles by 2020.
But, 27 months after opening day, it’s unclear just how many cars are currently using the road under an airport runway that links Barlow Trail to 36th Street N.E.
A traffic count was done in January 2015 to establish a baseline number of users, and a second count six months later confirmed the average daily weekday traffic volume for the airport tunnel was 13,000 vehicles.
That’s the most recent number the city has when it comes to just how many vehicles are using one of the costliest transportation projects in Calgary’s history, and it could remain the only data available until 2018.
“Once that road is built, it’s built, and just like other roadways in Calgary, it then goes into the catalogue of roads that we count — and that typically happens once every three years,” said Transportation spokesman Sean Somers.
Ward 3 Coun. Jim Stevenson, who spent years fighting for the project, said it doesn’t matter how many Calgarians are using the tunnel today.
“I don’t care whether there are two cars a day using it today because it’s there for the future,” he said. “I’ve said many times that I’d be happy if we built the tunnel and put boards on both ends of it, and closed it off and let it sit there for 10 years ... We can go without (the tunnel) at the present time but in another 10 to 15 years from now, we would be in an awful situation if we didn’t have it.”
The seven councillors who voted against the tunnel in February 2011 were critical of the price tag, concessions to the airport authority and ongoing operating costs.
Former alderman Gord Lowe couldn’t wrap his head around the cost-benefit of the project he dubbed a “tunnel to nowhere”— a sentiment he maintains.
“It’s a marvellous piece of engineering and it’s still not connected to anything,” Lowe said last week.
“If you open a map you can see how it can be connected so it goes somewhere, but at the end of the day, it will be $700 million to $900 million in total to save some people six minutes’ time or less.”
Stevenson expects more drivers will flock to the tunnel once 36th Street, which is undergoing widening, reopens and when development eventually occurs on the currently very bare, rural, east side of the tunnel.
The east side remains undeveloped because of a strict deal the city agreed to with the Calgary Airport Authority that dictates the city must first commit to building two new interchanges (at 19th Street and at Barlow Trail) before Airport Trail can be extended east of 36th Street to connect to Metis Trail and, one day, Stoney Trail.
Stevenson said the city has been lobbying the federal and provincial government to help fund the $50 million needed to build the interchanges, but a commitment is yet to be made.
“It boils down to dollars and cents right now,” he said.
Former alderman Gael MacLeod, who like Lowe voted against the tunnel when she was on council in 2011, said the tunnel’s cost and risk were among issues that stopped her from supporting the project.
“There were higher priority transportation projects in the city and they were deferred because of the money association with the tunnel,” she said.
“I haven’t changed my opinion on it. The city has underwritten a lot of risk and I worry about that. It’s a liability that we didn’t need to take on.”
While she admits the tunnel wasn’t her thing, Macleod said it’s “not something we can go back and undo” and it’s not worth dwelling on, even if details on just how busy the roadway is are lacking.
“I find it a little ironic all the data that has been painstakingly collected on the bike lanes and nothing on the tunnel,” she said, referencing the city’s $5.75 million downtown cycle track pilot project.
Somers with the city said detailed bike lane data is collected because the project is a pilot that will be reexamined by council, whereas the airport tunnel is a done deal.
“It’s established; it’s not going anywhere. It’s part of the infrastructure that is Calgary’s road system now,” he said.
Stevenson maintains it’s a needed piece of infrastructure and its true value will not be appreciated for decades.
I find it a little ironic all the data that has been painstakingly collected on the bike lanes and nothing on the tunnel.