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Delta council says no need to delay bridge

Metro recently requested more time for review
tunnel
The George Massey Tunnel is to be replaced with a new bridge.

Civic politicians in Delta told their Metro Vancouver colleagues last week there's no need to delay plans to replace the George Massey Tunnel.

Delta council approved sending a staff report to the province, as well as all Metro Vancouver directors, countering the assertion that the regional district needs more time to assess the possible impacts of a new bridge.

The Metro Vancouver board recently approved a staff report requesting an additional two months to review the $3.5-billion provincial project.

"I was very disappointed that the mayors, despite the information that I shared, wanted it delayed for two months," Mayor Lois Jackson said last week.

On more than one occasion, Jackson has expressed frustration over other mayors in the region wanting to halt the project, which has no ties to TransLink or requires money from Metro Vancouver.

The Delta report states that Ministry of Transportation staff have met with Metro Vancouver more than 20 times over the past three years, regional district staff are

part of the technical working group for the environmental assessment review and Metro staff have already provided written comments on the project definition report, which was released in December. There will be another public comment period once the environmental assessment application is submitted.

"It's really unfortunate that the mayors didn't support our position on the need for replacement of the tunnel," Jackson said.

Several Lower Mainland mayors have spoken out against the project.

Last December, when the province announced more details on the bridge, Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie, a long-time critic of the plan, expressed reservations about the priority to build it. Surrey Mayor Linda Hepner suggested the regional mayors' plan for transit, which

failed to win tax funding support in a plebiscite last year, should take precedence, and Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson has predicted the new bridge would mean major congestion in the city.

"It's like I'm talking to the wind and I think there's a lot more politics at play here than we would like to admit," Jackson said last month. "Even though they knew Premier (Christy) Clark had announced the bridge over two years ago, they still refuse to accept the fact that it's going ahead for all the right reasons."

As well this week, a Metro committee voted to ask the board to request that the project be put through a federal environmental assessment. The project is required to undergo a provincial review, but a federal review is not automatically part of the approval process.