Here We Go Again – the Massey Tunnel Replacement Saga – Please make It Stop!
The Massey tunnel is back in the news and the non stop fake news and alternate facts brigade are hard at it trying to rewrite history.
MLA Ian Paton desperately continues trying to sell alternative facts and myth to the taxpayer and Delta Councillor a and mayoralty hopeful, Dylan Kruger, who has never met a grievance he didn’t like, continue their political song and dance.
Zwei would like to remind everyone that in 2017, CKNW radio reported that the cost for the bridge has risen to $8 billion ($10 billion in today’s brass), which was one of the reasons to build the tunnel.
The probable reason why the NDP put a stop to things is that the current SkyTrain expansion plan is now costing $17 billion and rising, to build 21.7 km of light metro and with staunch MAGA Maple conservatives as local MLA’s, there would be less politcal damage with the cancelled tunnel, than a stoppage in SkyTrain construction.
The following are two RftV post from 2017 and 2018, to remind everyone the incompetence and dishonesty behind this now reported $12 billion project.
As on tunnel engineer told me; “the best solution today is just drop another four lane tube next to the present tunnel and tile it this time and in a couple of years no one will know”.
Massey Tunnel Shit Show
Posted by zweisystem on Saturday, November 2, 2019
Blunt title but it is time to be blunt, regional transit planning is a “shit show”.
Shit show: Noun, vulgar slang, US origin – a situation or event marked by chaos or controversy.
This aptly describes our regional transit planning, where politicians at all levels of government promote their pet transit theories and projects, using an extremely dishonest bureaucracy to carry out their wishes.
This costs money, an awful lot of money; this wastes timed, an awful lot of precious time; this costs planning paralysis and in the end politicians approve doing the same thing over again, hoping for different results.
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” Albert Einstein, Dec 13, 2017.
The Massey tunnel replacement project must stand out as a grand example of political manipulation; yellow journalism by the mainstream media; and a complete lack of any coherent regional transportation plan.
The Massey Tunnel does not need replacing, it is perfectly safe.
What is needed: A new bridge/tunnel crossing of the South Arm, near the vicinity 80th Ave in North Delta and a second bridge/tunnel crossing, of the North Arm, adjacent to the CN rail bridge, from Richmond to South Burnaby. This entails new highway construction, which the regional politicians are afraid to contemplate.
All the new 8 lane bridge or tunnel do, without a second crossing of the North Arm of the Fraser, is to create a parking lot on Highway 99 in Richmond because of the restricted capacity of the Laing, Oak St. Knight St., and Queensborough bridges!
There has been no capacity increase for crossings of the North Arm of the Fraser River since 1975!
Until a comprehensive transportation plan is tabled and a rational regional strategy for transportation is obtained, any new bridge will create a “shit show” for traffic.
Speeding up Massey Tunnel replacement crucial for economy: Delta city Councillor
by Ria Renouf and Alison Bailey
Posted Nov 1, 2019
Summary
Transit advocates say any plan for replacing the Massey Tunnel should be assessed in light of climate concerns
A Delta councillor says a seismically safe, efficient alternative is urgently needed for the crucial economic gateway
DELTA (NEWS 1130) — Transit advocates are citing climate concerns and calling for plans for the George Massey crossing to be studied further, but a Delta politician says enough is enough.
Abundant Transit Vancouver penned an open letter asking for the plan for replacing the crossing to be sent to the Regional District’s Climate Action Committee for further scrutiny.
Coun. Dylan Kruger is a member of that committee and says further study is not necessary and a new crossing is urgently needed.
“They are arguing that there should be no replacement for the George Massey Tunnel because we should not be building for car infrastructure, we should only be building for transit,” he says. “I’m fully in support of building infrastructure to get people out of their cars but there’s a fundamental concept people have to understand when it comes to the Massey tunnel: the Massey Tunnel is the economic gateway into Canada.”
Kruger says commuters aren’t the only ones who rely on the tunnel.
“At the end of the day, container trucks can’t take transit,” he explains. “We still need to build so we can get goods from point A to point B, in this region and in this country. So the notion that we should be building only for transit infrastructure here, I think really does not take into account the economic ramifications.”
Requiem For The Massey Tunnel Replacement Bridge
Posted by zweisystem on Tuesday, September 12, 2017
The Massey Tunnel Bridge replacement project is again in the news, as the massively expensive replacement bridge for the Massey tunnel has been mothballed.
Now, the CBC has found hugely expensive financial irregularities with the new Port Mann Bridge, and the air of political corruption hangs heavily in the air.
Was the proposed mega bridge to replace he Massey Tunnel nothing more than Liberal corruption on steroids?
Maybe it is time for a corruption inquiry in BC?
Real reason for span disappears but Delta continues campaign
Delta Optimist
Editor:
Delta’s propaganda campaign to garner support for the proposed mega bridge replacing the perfectly safe George Massey Tunnel is in full swing.
Delta’s Politics and Misinformation Must Not Stop. The Bridge campaign is repugnant due to its long list of Trump style fake news and alternative facts.
A proper study for replacing the tunnel with a bridge would take a year or more to do. Delta’s “back of an envelope” review took less than a month to do and is poorly done as a result.
The replacement bridge was never about traffic congestion, rather it was to allow Panama-max tankers and colliers up the Fraser to Surrey Fraser Docks and no plans were made to reduce traffic at the Oak Street Bridge and Knight Street Bridge choke points. If anything, the proposed new bridge would create massive gridlock in Richmond.
As the real reasons for the bridge evaporated, Mayor Lois Jackson doubled down with another “back of an envelope” plan by hijacking the Rail for the Valley’s Leewood Study, for a Vancouver/Richmond to Chilliwack TramTrain service, for her pro-bridge propaganda campaign.
The study released in 2010 took over a year to prepare by real transportation professionals, providing a cost effective Vancouver/Richmond to Chilliwack passenger rail, using TramTrain service for the Lower Mainland.
The study never planned for LRT service across the proposed bridge, nor would a meandering rail line using the proposed bridge be viable.
Unless there was direct service to Vancouver, any rail service using the bridge (which will not have rail built in) would fail miserably.
Instead of a ruinously expensive bridge, the mayor should concern herself with Surrey’s $2.5-billion LRT, where two-thirds of the cost is being spent on roads and utilities for favoured land developers and speculators along the LRT route and the now $3 billion Broadway SkyTrain subway, which the route today has a quarter of traffic flows, needed to justify subway construction. Both are financial time bombs.
The mayor should support practical and cost-effective transit and transportation solutions and not massively expensive vanity projects that will do little real good except pauper the taxpayer.
