The NDP Just Love FastFerry Projects!
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana, an early 20th century writer and philosopher.
Well, the NDP certainly do not remember their past because the $6 billion, 16 km Expo Line extension to Langley is turning into another “FastFerry” fiasco! Well done, Premier Eby, well done!
The fast ferry scandal was a political affair in the late 1990s relating to the construction of three fast ferries by the Canadian provincial crown corporation BC Ferries under direction of the Executive Council of British Columbia, headed at the time by Premier Glen Clark of the New Democratic Party. Due to various oversights by the government, BC Ferries, design bureaus, and the shipyards, the cost of the program more than doubled from $210 million ($70 million/vessel) to almost $460 million ($150 million/vessel) and final delivery was almost 3 years behind schedule.
Rail for the Valley, with excellent advice from real experts had predicted that the cost of of the Expo Line light metro extension to Langley would cost around $5 billion, with hints it could be more.
Well it is much more, $1 billion more and that is not including cars and the $1 billion Operations and Maintenance Centre #5!
Now, we are at $7 billion and counting.
By comparison, Ottawa is extending its light rail line by 64 km, for a cost of $6.7 billion!
There are many reasons why the proprietary Expo Line light metro should never have been considered for expansion into the Fraser Valley, with the prime reason being cost. Light metros were designed strictly for urban transportation, with the philosophy of small automated (driverless) trains, operating at close headway’s, moving customers.
The law of “unintended consequences” soon raised its ugly fiscal head, running small trains at close headway’s created far more wear and tear on the transit system than a regular heavy-rail metro, causing large operational and maintenance costs. Not only did light metro cost more to build than a heavy rail metro, light metro lacked capacity.
Ubiquitous LRT soon made light-metro obsolete, being able to carry far more customers at a far cheaper cost and only cities with entrenched bureaucracies, unwilling to change, and uniformed politcans, who care little about the taxpayer, continue to plan or build with light metro.
Like the FastFerries, the cost of transit rose from a $1.65 billion, LRT project to a $3 billion, SkyTrain light metro project, to $4 billion project and now the cost has topped $6 billion; and for what?
A now $6 billion light metro line, which according to TransLink’s own documents, will carry fewer customers than the Broadway B-99 Line express bus.
American transportation expert, Gerald Fox, neatly sums up the current situation with his review of the 2008 Evergreen Line Business Case.
“But, eventually, Vancouver will need to adopt lower-cost LRT in its lesser corridors, or else limit the extent of its rail system. And that seems to make some TransLink people very nervous.”
Pretty breakdown events and problems.
It’s not the first time that the BC government bought a vessel unsuitable Horseshoe Bay to Swartz Bay. Queen of the North need a retainer added to Operate. In operations Slow turnaround time due to the one line on and off. Recent example Sales class temporarily adding extra capacity. In service Maximum speed 16 knots and overloaded.
First vessel on Nanaimo service not complain to the coastline damage.
What’s the second vessel Put on Horseshoe Bay to Swartz Bay of Southern golf Islands residents complained about short damage and property damage. Investigation on the wake of the vessel.
Where is there any design problems with the vessel there was quite a few. 3 different firms Design 2 were in engineering and 1 Interior design from NYC. Australian firm Incat with Vancouver firm Robert Allen to Just thine a high-speed cadamaran to fit with BC ferry’s existing “Terminals”.
They had to upgrade the terminal to accommodate extra forces on the dolphin and fenders is unexpected cost. Poor ventilation on the lower car deck was uncomfortably hot. Lower car deck front and rear doors had to be redesigned twice. The vessels ended up being overweight from the original specifications.
Under testing 90% Engine power 45 knot No cars. Full load in operation was 34 knot and overload 32 knot.
Supposed to service going 38 knots.
And when the?
Vessel wasn’t fully loaded. It was a hassle to balance the vessel and increase turn around time.
Evident design features of Incat in Bridge and hull design cause problems coastline. Did have a design wave piercing design.
CFI assembler not manufacturer. BC ship building to work with aluminum. Is it requiring extra equipment and skills to get a perfect weld. Add aluminum price shut up during construction. All the components had to be burging to CFI transportation costs up.
In short, there was not one major reason for CFI failures of The Crown corporation.
Industry was not ready for producing or assembling aluminum components. String on Marine transportation sector. Incat Intention chose a bad design for the hull. CFI disagreements with other shipyards on quality.
P3 contracts for construction for SLS project be 3 secret contracts. Back fire spectacularly, with these cost increases, doubling from all of the contractors. Not From BC.
Zwei replies: Again, you are absolutely wrong. The problem for the Fast Cats was that they were designed for a 40 minute Iona Island to Gabriola Island run and when that plan was nixed by the provincial government, the Ferry’s has to be redesigned with a 80 ton bow door to permit its use on the the two mainland to Vancouver Island runs. The added weight played havoc with the boats operation and their wakes caused by the “jet thruster” engines also cause much damage to docks and more on their route.
Weight was such an issue with these boats, BC Ferries toyed with the idea of fast refueling, refueling the boats during loading, but Transport Canada didn’t like that.
I know, because of a good friend of mine an engineer with BC Ferries, spent half of his career trying to get these boats to work. In the end they were classic white elephants, but the NDP refusing to admit to making a mistake, refused to drop these boats altogether.
As an aside, if the 40 minute, Iona island to Gabriola Island route was built, it would have meant cheaper Ferry Fares today and the abandonment of the heavily subsidized Gabriola Ferry.
Political interference always increases costs of transit projects.
We, I was working for Siemens at the time, had a $1 billion contract to build 27 km of light rail for Ottawa, but your senior government, reneged on the funding because they wanted Ottawa to build a Vancouver style Sky
Train, to keep jobs in Quebec and Ontario.
That cost the City of Ottawa $34 million for the broken contract, but from your view point, is soured Canada as a country that stood by its contracts. I believe the Koreans are of the same opinion with their Sky Train troubles and the bait and switch Bombardier pulled with them.
The asked us what to do and we told them “blow it up and start anew!”
Political inference has cost your taxpayers around $4 billion and I know on our side of the pond, taxpayers are not forgiving at election time.
Actually the cancellation of the North -South LRT was about a new Conservative Mayor, who had always wanted to kill the project but never had the support from provincial Conservatives. To be fair the project’s supporters would have killed the current Line #2 and replaced it with electric LRT, which was foolish. Even many local transit supporters had many issues with the project, including its poor messaging and information outreach. Finally the number who wanted to end the LRT project exceeded the number who didn’t. But it all started as a way to end a project supported by the Liberals because it had been okayed under a provincial Liberal government. The outright cancellation of the project still gives the city of Ottawa issues today and led to much reputational damage.