Ian Robertson has requested to be relieved from his columnist obligations for a few months, so Ted Murphy has again reached way to the back to the bench to find a pinch hitter. I am looking forward to being a contributing columnist again.
The topic for this column is the George Massey Tunnel. There was flurry of articles and letters about it a few months ago in the Optimist. As I use it frequently, these articles led me to observe the structure and traffic flow through the tunnel more closely.
First, I note that in 2006 Kevin Falcon, who was then transportation minister, said that fixing the tunnel was a low priority since it was only congested at rush hours, and that a tunnel upgrade or replacement was not on the table for one to two decades.
The current Ministry of Transportation website says: "[T]he existing tunnel is congested for almost 13 hours a day, with morning rush hour queues frequently extending 1.5 to 5 kilometres."
So conditions have either gotten a lot worse in the last six years, or Falcon was mistaken, or both.
Last September, Premier Christy Clark announced that a planning process to upgrade or replace the tunnel in one to two decades had begun and public comment sessions would be held in a few weeks. Clark's initiative appears to have been based on the premise the public would gratefully vote for the Liberals this May in response for their commitment to address tunnel congestion in 10 to 15 years. Others say she was just told to do it by the port.
I also noted a comment in one of the Optimist articles that a senior Ministry of Transportation planner was surprised to learn the backup from the Steveston Highway exit extends into the tunnel in the morning rush and effectively blocks one lane. I had begun to notice this phenomenon about three years ago. I concluded that senior staff at the ministry seldom uses the tunnel.
So the response from the provincial government on this issue to date has ranged from useless to cynical.
However, there are real costs to do nothing. South Surrey is growing at a rapid pace and the backup on Highway 99 to get into the tunnel often extends past the Highway 10 overpass, and lengthens every year.
Similarly the backup on Highway 17 northbound now often reaches the slough. The backups in the lanes opposing counterflows often extend two to three kilometres. Access to Tilbury for commercial traffic is limited. This situation results in thousands of wasted hours every day, and I have seen no accounting of the opportunity cost of not upgrading the tunnel.
The last time the efficiency of the tunnel structure was substantially improved was the installation of the counterflow system. In my view, there are other improvements that would improve traffic flow in the short term (to be discussed in my next column), but we do need a substantial change in tunnel policy and priority by the minister of transportation.
