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Veteran Delta councillor frustrated by NDP approach on new river crossing

It’s infuriating. That’s how veteran city councillor Bruce McDonald sums up the provincial government’s consultation on replacing the George Massey Tunnel, which has keeping the current tunnel as well as adding a new one as options on the table.
tunnel
The province is planning a series of interim tunnel and roadwork improvements for the current crossing starting this summer.

It’s infuriating.

That’s how veteran city councillor Bruce McDonald sums up the provincial government’s consultation on replacing the George Massey Tunnel, which has keeping the current tunnel as well as adding a new one as options on the table.

“I just find it so frustrating and the government is talking about a consultation. There’s 14,000 pages of reports, like them or not, so studies were done. They came up with the concept of building a bridge. It’s a complex design but it kept the bridge out of the river with the supports on land, so you didn’t have to get into a three- or four- or five-year environmental study, and you don’t lose any farmland at all,” said McDonald.  

Last week Delta council had a workshop with Lina Halwani, the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure’s corridor project director, who heard the civic politicians’ concerns as part of the government’s new round of consultations. Her presentation included telling council a new crossing needs to be better aligned with regional plans and that a business case for a preferred option would be ready by 2020.

During the workshop McDonald raised concern about another tunnel even being considered.

He told the Optimist this week that he was told back in the mid-1980s, while chair of a residents’ committee on the new Alex Fraser Bridge, that there would be too much displacement putting a new underwater crossing right next to the current tunnel, which turns 60 this year, so the only alternative would be to move a new tunnel further up river.

That means hundreds of acres of farmland lost, but McDonald also has other concerns as well.

“I don’t believe in the next 10 years there would be a catastrophic earthquake for the tunnel where people would drown but I do believe that sometime in the next 10 years, or so, for one reason or the other, that tunnel is going to be rendered non-usable. Even if we had a minor shake, it will likely render that tunnel useless. What are we going to do with 80,000 vehicles a day that we can’t even get across now?”

As far as the possibility of a bridge with fewer lanes than the 10-lane span approved by the previous Liberal government, McDonald pointed to the major project now underway at the Alex Fraser Bridge to create a rush hour counter flow.

He said the same would likely have to happen within a few years if a smaller bridge connected South Delta and Richmond.

Meanwhile, the province is planning a series of interim tunnel and roadwork improvements for the current crossing starting this summer. The province indicated the upgrades to the tunnel and road system would cost approximately $40 million.