A longtime Richmond councillor and staunch George Massey Tunnel Replacement Project opponent has fired the latest salvo in an increasingly heated war of words between his city and Delta over the proposed bridge project.
Responding to Delta's full page ad that ran in the Richmond News, Harold Steves said the "Massey Tunnel Fake News from Delta Council would make Donald Trump proud. They have taken facts that aren't in context and put them together to tell us something that isn't real."
Steves noted one example of "fear-mongering at its finest" is Delta's claims regarding the number of collisions at the tunnel and adjacent interchange and that the bridge would reduce collisions by 35 per cent.
In fact, the Port Mann Bridge had 37.5 per cent more collisions than the tunnel, he said.
"To get their accident numbers up Delta apparently added in either the Steveston Highway or the Highway 17 overpass," complained Steves.
His comments are just another example how the two municipalities are at extreme opposite viewpoints when it comes to the $3.5 billion project, which could be scrapped by the new Green-backed NDP government, although the province has yet to make an announcement whether it will be killed or delayed.
Delta recently committed a total budget of $35,000 for its We Need a Bridge Campaign, having already spent more than $19,000 for newspaper ads and other expenses, while Richmond is calling on the province to halt the project.
Mayor Lois Jackson and senior Delta officials last week met with new transportation minister Claire Trevena to make a case for the bridge, presenting a comprehensive volume of technical studies and cost analysis highlighting the need for another crossing, as well as the bridge being the most cost effective with the least environmental and farmland impact. Richmond's transportation director, Victor Wei, in response, came out with a report disputing Delta's case and presented an alternative that involves twinning the current crossing with either a fourlane tunnel or just a twolane HOV/future rapid transit tube.
Responding to the Richmond report at the last Delta council meeting, Jackson said she's pleased that Richmond has at least acknowledged something needs to be done to address the congestion, but the twin tunnel idea makes little sense from a cost and environmental perspective.
She also noted the project has had "all the public consultation you'd ever want, 14,000 pages of material and people are saying, 'Oh, I don't know anything about that. I didn't see any studies.'Well, so look at it. It makes me so crossed when people have no idea what's happening around them.
All that information, all that work, has been done. It's finished."
Saying Richmond Coun. Carol Day's recent letter proposing a tunnel twinning is flabbergasting, Delta Coun. Robert Campbell said, "I find her to be grossly uniformed and irresponsible...she seems to be willing to risk lives to not get the bridge built."
Campbell, also frustrated by what he sees as willful misinformation, also noted, "I find the whole (Richmond) council to be irresponsible and derelict in their duty to the public with respect to this."
