The Premier Readies For The 2017 Election By Announcing A New Bridge
Premier Christie Clark has started her legacy building by announcing a new 10 lane bridge to replace the George Massey tunnel. The announcement certainly shows that land speculators and developers are running the government as this bridge will not only create more traffic chaos than it will solve, it make it open season on the agriculture Land Reserve, promoting massive new housing developments on former farm land in Delta.
Zwei is in rare agreement with former Vancouver City Councillor, Gordon Price and his prediction that; “it will add more pressure to develop farmland.” In fact this bridge is the death knell of the Agriculture Land Reserve in Delta and will foster urban sprawl on a massive scale.
What is interesting that “rapid transit“, specifically the Canada Line has not been mentioned, yet the scope of investment, including a new bridge begs a rail solution for South of the Fraser, yet nary a mention is made and no rail is shown in the promo’s.
Could it be that it is just too expensive to extend the Canada Line, with the mini-metro looking more and more like the “White Elephant” it is.
All this bridge will do is move gridlock elsewhere andAi?? beggar the poor with onerous tolls and of course, enrich friends of the government with lucrative contracts, all on the taxpayer’s dime.
The Czarina is in charge and this massive new bridge, which planning seems to be cobbled hastily on the back of an envelope, with some spiffy graphics thrown in, is the shape of things to come. Blacktop politics at its worst.
New bridge will replace Massey Tunnel, Premier Clark says
By Jeff Nagel – South Delta Leader
Published: September 20, 2013A new bridge will replace the aging George Massey Tunnel but the provincial government isn’t yet saying if the span will be tolled.
Premier Christy Clark promised construction will begin in 2017 in her speech Friday at the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention.
Clark said it’s too early to say how improved transit along Highway 99 might fit into the project or whether tolls will be required to pay for it.
If the new bridge is tolled it would join the new Port Mann, the Golden Ears, and possibly the Pattullo ai??i??Ai??where tolls are also an option to pay for replacement ai??i??Ai??as Metro Vancouver bridges that motorists must pay to cross.
The premier said the province is following the advice of the public provided in consultations that a new bridge is best, rather than another tunnel.
The province is also rejecting one controversial alignment that would have crossed the river further upstream and was strongly opposed over concern it would intensify pressure to develop farmland in east Richmond.
“People said the tunnel must be replaced and it must be replaced on the same route,” Clark told UBCM, adding the project will relieve congestion on what is now “the worst bottleneck in the Lower Mainland.”
A newly released report on public feedback found “medium” support for building a new bridge and also keeping the old tunnel.
But decommissioning the 55-year-old tunnel also offers the major advantage of allowing larger ships to sail up the Fraser River, opening up expanded port use of sites in North Delta and Surrey.
Asked if Port Metro Vancouver should contribute to the cost, Clark called that “a good idea.”
The new Port Mann Bridge itself cost $830 million, not counting about $2 billion more to expanding the highway and interchanges.
It’s not yet clear if the province intends similar upgrades along Highway 99 or how many lanes are planned for the new bridge.
But a video released by the transportation ministry depicts a large 10-lane bridge with special HOV and truck lanes.
Some transit advocates have previously said they fear the new bridge will come at the cost of more transit and SFU City Program director Gordon Price predicted Friday it will add more pressure to develop farmland.
Engineering and technical work is underway to develop a project scope and business case for the new bridge and associated Highway 99 corridor upgrades, to be made public next spring.
Meanwhile, the transportation ministry plans to immediately lengthen the Steveston off-ramp at the north end of the tunnel to improve safety and ease traffic congestion there.
The announcement was applauded by Delta mayor Lois Jackson and the B.C. Trucking Association.
Clark first pledged to begin studying options to replace the tunnel at last year’s UBCM convention. The province says the tunnel has about 10 years of useful life left.
So now everyone can rush to line up at the Steveston offramp and Oak Street Bridge. Good work. When will it become evident that more pavement is not the answer? How much of our farm lands and city infrastructure will have to be devoted to cars? We already have many sprawling highways and roads through town of 2 to 4 lanes per direction, and massive amounts of land dedicated to parking. Should we just pave the whole damn valley? Or should we start looking at smart planning? Mixed zoning so people can work, shop, and play where they live, as well as building for transit, as well as actually developing useful, cost effective transit? I tried to switch to transit. It is expensive, slow, and crowded. And that’s if the bus doesn’t make you miss your transfer. This whole valley is a damn mess and we need to get our heads out of our asses and change.
It would be a shame to build the vehicle bridge and not extend light rail at the same time. Edmonton protects its rich farm land with by-laws and the same can be done here.
I drove to Seattle every week over five years and the tunnel is too congested. Once I got through the tunnel to or from Seattle it was mostly clear sailing and the bottleneck will not get shifted elsewhere as some contend.
Perhaps southbound Chris, but northbound it will for sure.
And they can’t extend light rail because there is no light rail to extend.