MASSEY BRIDGE PROJECT SENT INTO REVIEW LIMBO
The New Democrats slammed the brakes on construction of a 10-lane toll bridge to replace the Massey tunnel on Thursday, sending the project to an outside review that will take at least until spring.
The cabinet cancelled the pending award of the major contract to design, build and maintain the budgetedat-$3.5 billion crossing, necessitating a $2-million payout to each of the two bidders that submitted final proposals.
Cast into limbo is the work already done, including $66 million spent by the transportation ministry on planning, engineering and site preparation, and a further $25-million outlay by B.C. Hydro to begin relocating the transmission lines flanking the existing tunnel.
Still, Transportation Minister Claire Trevena insisted that the almost $100 million spent to date was not necessarily wasted, nor were the New Democrats starting over on fixing admitted problems of safety and congestion at the aging crossing of the Fraser.
“We’re not going back to square one,” she told reporters, never mind that the New Democrats appeared to be doing just that after their earlier decision to cancel tolls on the Port Mann and Golden Ears bridges.
“We’re going back to a thorough consultation with the community,” the rookie transportation minister continued. “We haven’t made any decision on what is the best way forward. We need to be open to any recommendations provided by the review.”
The transportation ministry “is in the process of recruiting the individual to lead the technical review, and will support the review with expertise in highway infrastructure construction, transportation planning and traffic engineering,” according to the accompanying press release.
Judging from the evidence posted on the ministry website, much technical work has already been done. The document library for the tunnel replacement project includes more than 150 project reports, analyses, traffic forecasts, seismic and geotechnical studies, fact sheets, and other findings.
The project has already cleared a review by the provincial environmental assessment office. Separate studies covered everything from the impact of the new bridge on barn owls, raptors, herons, small mammals, amphibians and at-risk plants to concerns about water quality, hydrogeology, contaminated sites and heritage preservation.
Earlier this year, the Massey replacement also cleared a review by the Agricultural Land Commission, which green-lighted a swap that was projected to increase the regional stock of agricultural land once the bridge was completed.
The ministry also presided over three rounds of public consultations going back five years and separate exchanges with 13 First Nations and other Indigenous groups. Plus it claimed almost 700 meetings with others with an interest in the project.
With all that effort and documentation in hand, Trevena nevertheless insisted that the cabinet was not expressing non-confidence in the transportation ministry by ordering further review.
The ministry had done “some good work,” she maintained in grudging tribute to senior staff. But that still wasn’t enough to satisfy her and her colleagues at the cabinet table.
“There was a sense that not all options were thoroughly examined,” she told reporters. “The feedback on the 10-lane bridge I heard was very strong opposition from many, many quarters.”
To be sure. And if she gets around to reading the material on her own ministry’s website, she will discover that many of the commonplace objections have already been analyzed and dismissed in the various engineering studies and reports.
Take the suggestion that the ministry could get away with building a second tunnel alongside the first and then upgrading the existing 60-year-old tunnel to modern-day seismic standards.
“Bringing the existing tunnel to modern day seismic standards is not practical due to the risk of damage and the limitations of densifying soils under the tunnel,” according to one of the technical studies quoted on the ministry site.
“The tunnel’s height and width are below modern-day standards. Many trucks have been stuck in the tunnel and several fires have occurred …
“The tunnel cannot be made wider, higher or meet current seismic codes. A new structure built to modern day standards will reduce crashes and other incidents and provide a safer facility in the event of an earthquake.”
Would an independent review, conducted with the same level of technical expertise, reach a different conclusion? If not, the bridge might end up back on the table as the preferred choice.
But Trevena may well reach a different conclusion on the timing of the replacement from the political consultations she herself will be conducting to obtain “buy in” from mayors in the Metro Vancouver region.
The mayors have seen no urgency to replacing the tunnel, which is a provincially owned project and a traffic pressure point that few of them share.
Many of them would sooner see the province contribute scarce transportation dollars to replacing the Pattullo Bridge, an older crossing (80 years) that is owned by Metro Vancouver’s transportation authority.
Moreover, it was transferred to the region by a previous NDP government, which could add politically poetic justice to any pitch for the New Democrats to put replacing the Pattullo ahead of the Massey in the funding queue.
Besides, the previous government’s decision to proceed with the Massey was largely political.
On that basis, one could readily see Trevena and her colleagues postponing replacement of the Massey, getting started on the Pattullo, while tackling the no less thorny question of how to pay for either of them now that tolling is off the table.
We’re not going back to square one. We’re going back to a thorough consultation with the community. CLAIRE TREVENA, B.C. transportation minister