Welcome to 2013.
It was just over five years ago, September of 2013 to be exact, when then premier Christy Clark announced at the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention the province would build a new crossing to replace the George Massey Tunnel. It took another three-and-a-half years before ground was broken on a $3.5-billion, 10-lane bridge project, only to have a change in government put all that on hold.
The new government officially stuck a knife into that mega bridge earlier this week, using a report from an Ontario engineer as cover to kill an initiative it never liked. If you can overlook all the wasted time and money, you can justify this week’s move as the NDP’s prerogative, but what’s not up for debate is the fact we’re now back where we were more than five years ago.
Just as Clark’s Liberals began a consultation process following her announcement to the UBCM, the province will now consult with the Mayors’ Council to determine where we go from here. I imagine there will be several crossing options to consider, followed by consultations, a decision and then a lengthy approval process, which could get even longer if a twinned tunnel requires the feds to get involved.
Transportation Minister Claire Trevena would only commit to a business case being in place by 2020, but there’s no timeline on when a crossing would be built and no government commitment to actually fund the undertaking, so we’re actually worse off than 2013 in the sense that not only have the last five years been for naught, but the road forward is uncertain.
The notion that we need a whole bunch more analysis is laughable. The Liberals studied it at length, the NDP’s hand-picked engineer reviewed what had been done and the government has now been in possession of that review for the past six months, yet the minister is talking about another couple of years to come up with a business case. I’m sorry but the worst bottleneck in B.C. deserves better than that.
If the 2013 announcement wasn’t going to produce a bridge until 2022, presuming that project stayed on schedule, how long before we see something come out of a late 2018 announcement? I’m not sure those stuck in traffic at the tunnel everyday want to hear that answer.
