Login / RegisterEric Doherty: Shifting context puts billion-dollar Pattullo Bridge project on shaky footing
TransLink’s plan to replace the four-lane Pattullo Bridge with a new six-lane bridge at an estimated cost of up to $1 billion has not attracted much attention, with the exception of some concerned residents in New Westminster and Surrey.
But the constantly evolving movement against tar-sands expansion is set to make this and other roadway expansion projects a new front in the battle over pipelines and tankers.
So far, the campaign to block the Kinder Morgan and Enbridge tar-sands pipeline and tanker proposals have mainly focused on the potential for spills in the context of exports. But campaigners are finding that many people already understand that our cars, trucks, and airplanes run on dirty tar-sands oil and are demanding to know what the solutions are.
“The number one thing people ask me is how they are going to get to work without tar-sands oil to fuel their cars” said Ben West, healthy communities campaigner for the Wilderness Committee.
But it's not only groups opposed to tar-sands expansion who are asking hard questions about transportation spending priorities. Like Vancouver, it appears the City of New Westminster won’t bend to provincial pressure to widen roads connecting to the freeway network.
There once was a plan, where two extra lanes of traffic would go from a new wider Pattullo Bridge. The provincial government’s Gateway expansion scheme included building a new arterial road, the North Fraser Perimeter Road (NFPR), on the banks of the Fraser River from the Queensbourough Bridge through New Westminster to Highway 1 near the Port Mann Bridge.
From the outset there were two big problems with the NFPR. The first was that it would go through a built-up urban area with well established neighbourhoods and shiny new condo towers. The second was that TransLink had no way to pay for the project, except by dipping into scarce transit funds and going hat in hand to Ottawa and Victoria for matching infrastructure grants—money that could otherwise fund transit infrastructure or other priorities.
As I write, TransLink’s financial woes are ongoing, a crisis contributed to by Premier Christy Clark’s refusal to approve new funding sources, such as an increased carbon tax or a vehicle levy.
Hundreds of New Westminster residents expressed their opposition when TransLink tried to build the first few hundred meters of the NFPR at an estimated cost of $175 million. The shelving of the NFPR came as a bit of a surprise: at one of a long string of packed public meetings, Sany Zein, TransLink’s director of roads, calmly announced that the NFPR project was dead. The room erupted into applause, and a half-billion-dollar segment of the Gateway Program was erased from the region’s planning maps.
Or at least in theory it was. In reality, it is still clearly marked on the Gateway Program’s maps showing the Pattullo Bridge linking the North and South Perimeter Roads.
Under pressure from concerned residents, the City of New Westminster has worked to defend their interests on the Pattullo Bridge. The city withdrew from TransLink’s consultation on the configuration of a six-lane bridge replacement, holding their own consultations sessions on a new Master Transportation Plan. It was intended to boost walking, cycling, and transit ridership and improving the quality of life in New Westminster’s streetcar-era communities.
The Georgia Straight quoted Jim Lowrie, New Westminster’s director of engineering, saying: “Simply speaking, the road network in the city of New Westminster is not designed to accommodate the traffic that will be brought over by a six-lane bridge.”
Some Surrey residents have also stepped up in opposition to TransLink’s six-lane bridge proposal.
“Global warming and the end of cheap oil means we need to focus on improving transit instead of roadway expansion for cars and trucks” said Steve Burke, the spokesperson for the Surrey Citizens Transportation Initiative.
With the unprecedented heat wave, drought, and fires south of the border, the public is waking up to the reality of global warming as an immediate crisis and are looking for real action.
A six-lane Pattullo Bridge would end up creating an extremely expensive bottleneck, similar to the one about to be created when the newly expanded Highway 1 opens and the traffic hits Grandview Highway and other East Vancouver streets that are already at capacity.
At one point, Translink was quite clear about what needed to be done with the Pattullo: it needed a major overhaul with earthquake strengthening and safety upgrades. They proposed paying for this work with tolls.
But once the provincial government under Gordon Campbell announced that only new bridges could be tolled, TransLink suddenly announced that the Pattullo would be replaced with a new toll bridge.
Ever since this about-face, New Westminster residents have regarded with suspicion TransLink's assertions that it is impossible or impractical to upgrade the existing bridge. They are right to be suspicious, given the dubious record of TransLink’s road-building division.
TransLink spokespeople have also repeatedly claimed that traffic conditions on the existing bridge are unsafe, while ignoring the dramatic safety improvement since TransLink started closing the inside lanes at night to prevent road racing and extreme speeding.
Apparently, this simple measure has worked, and there have been no fatal crashes since the night-time lane closures started.
Like the Lions Gate Bridge, an upgrade to the Pattullo would be technically challenging, but far less expensive than replacement. A four-lane replacement would also be considerably less expensive than a six-lane bridge.
TransLink, under the direction of B.C.'s transportation and infrastructure minister Blair Lekstrom, recently adopted a more conciliatory stance on the Pattullo—agreeing to look at all practical solutions, which apparently includes upgrading the existing bridge. This could delay a firm decision until after the next provincial election in May 2013.
Thus, the decision is likely to be made under an NDP government, which is, in turn, likely to return control of the TransLink board to local mayors and councillors.
This would change the system imposed by the B.C. Liberals, who replaced municipal politicians with unelected representatives appointed by business-friendly allies.By the time the next provincial election takes place, there could also be a whole new context to transportation spending decisions.
For its part, the Wilderness Committee has stepped up with one of the first solutions-oriented campaigns against tar-sands expansion. The Transit Not Tankers petition calls for a “shift from spending our money on new highways to investing it in public transit and passenger rail".
Other environmental groups will follow suit with similar campaigns if they want to be seen as having real solutions.
After May 2013, the decision about building a six-lane Pattullo replacement, upgrading the existing Pattullo Bridge, or building a four-lane replacement may come before a TransLink board once again composed of elected municipal politicians. Given the wave of opposition to tar-sands expansion, and the unmet demand for improved transit in Surrey and around the region, it isn't far-fetched to imagine that the six-lane option will be soundly rejected.
Eric Doherty is a transportation planner and coauthor of the Wilderness Committee-Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives study "Transportation Transformation: Building Complete Communities and a Zero-Emission Transportation System in B.C." Follow him on Twitter @Eric_Doherty.
As you are probably aware, narrow lanes do not necessarily lead to increases in serious crashes. Wherever lanes are narrow buses and trucks straddle the lanes. It is not a crisis on West Broadway, getting used to it is part of learning to drive in a big city.
Are you aware of any serious crashes because of trucks straddling both lane on the Pattullo? Even one? (If it has, this is a good reason to consider converting the Pattullo to a 3-lane reversing set up like the Lions Gate Bridge)
Or has it just led to drivers having to think and drive at the speed limit instead of talking on their phones, speeding and drinking coffee at the same time?
Expansion of the road and highway network is definitely not the problem. Lack of capacity in that network is a huge problem. When vehicular is choked, as it is in Vancouver, it create both an emissions problems and an economic problem. Cars idling are unnecessarily contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. And people idling means that we're not working, goods are not being delivered and money is not changing hands.
Lets consider a day, hopefully in the not too distant future, when most if not all vehicles are zero emission (regardless of how their power is generated). We will continue to need well designed / efficient roads then, just as we do now.
Please, do not try to entangle the needed shift from fissile fuels with the transportation needs that we will always have.
Wider roads and freeways lead to increased greenhouse gas emissions, not the other way around. You seem to have fallen for the BC Government's misinformation campaign, see http://www.straight.com/article-450541/vancouver/translink-plan-imparts-...
You can't build your way out of congestion, therefore you can't build your way out of idling emissions with wider roads and bridges.
Apparently you didn't understand my comment. At some point, we will have emission free transport, but that transport will still require a road and highway network.
Consider how the Georgia Straight will be delivered in 2025 if all you have left are pedestrian bridges and bus lanes. Electronically? How do the tablets and computers of the future get to the stores so that I can buy one? Sure I might be able to take a bus to the store, but how is the store going to get stocked if there are no roads or highways for delivery vans?
These are two very independent issues with different solutions.
Metro Vancouver is the perfect organization to do the road and transit planning here. It is in tune with the municipalites and employs engineers who do what is right.
What do puppets at TransLink know about transit and planning? They do as they are told by the ruling provincial government. String up the bastards.
Please re-read the article. Nowhere does it suggest eliminating the road network. In fact, I support improved maintenance of our existing roads and bridges.
But you are not alone in jumping to this very strange conclusion; I even once heard an unelected TransLink board member say a very similar thing in response to a suggestion the there should be more transit lanes in the region.
As for emissions free vehicles, maybe the vast majority of cars on the road will be electric at some point decades from now. But we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions deeply and quickly, and almost all the cars on new car lots today run on tar sands oil.
That being said, LRT or trams offer an alternative to cars and we must do what we can to reduce vehicle traffic as much as possible during peak hours. As Metro Vancouver grows, the rush hours will become protracted and getting more people to use transit is prudent.
When TransLink uses buses to clog up the roads it isn't prudent and it is happening because TransLink must use buses to get passengers to SkyTrain stations which are spaced miles apart in distance. Paradoxically, SkyTrain is creating much of the road congestion because few drivers want to use the type of transit offered by TransLink (regional SkyTrain transit).
TransLink is increasing ridership by cheating when it goes after students who are mostly not drivers and who just use transit because it is available at 2 am. Many students with U-Passes on transit are being counted many times to show increased ridership even though the number of transit users is much less than the bloated ridership figures by TransLink suggest.
While your opinion may not be directly inserted in the article, the inclusion of quotes like:
"“Global warming and the end of cheap oil means we need to focus on improving transit instead of roadway expansion for cars and trucks” said Steve Burke, the spokesperson for the Surrey Citizens Transportation Initiative."
and:
"For its part, the Wilderness Committee has stepped up with one of the first solutions-oriented campaigns against tar-sands expansion. The Transit Not Tankers petition calls for a “shift from spending our money on new highways to investing it in public transit and passenger rail".
Other environmental groups will follow suit with similar campaigns if they want to be seen as having real solutions."
I read your thesis to be, "I don't like the current source of the fuel so we should make it difficult for people to drive". You're entangling fossil fuel / greenhouse gas emissions with road network expansion. What about people who've made the switch themselves to hybrids, electric cars, natural gas etc.
I'm not against more and efficient use of mass transit. But I am against the notion that cars are evil. Cars are not evil, they currently produce nasty emissions but that will change. Trying to force that change by choking traffic in the network will likely backfire badly. As far as network infrastructure goes, we need to advance it all together.
Of course roads should be maintained and be safe wherever they're actually NEEDED but let's be clear here, expanding them is not about ensuring ease of commercial transport. We already have far more capacity than we'll probably ever need for that purpose. Eliminating congestion could easily be accomplished by drastically reducing the number of private, single occupancy vehicles that dominate our roadways. Zero emission cars are still very wasteful. Aside from the obvious waste of materials, machinery and labor to sustain such a culture the needed increase in electricity production combined with the way that we currently produce electricity would still continue to dump huge amounts of emissions into our atmosphere. Then of course there are the quality of life and safety issues associated with cars. I'm talking here about accidents and the huge amount of time wasted in transit from one place to another. There is also the issue of Urban design. Why on earth do we design cities that require people to drive long distances to get where they need to go? We need a lot more central planning and a lot less chaotic development. The blind hand of the market is clearly inadequate to the task.
We need radical solutions and we need them soon. The forest fires, droughts and storms we're seeing now are just the beginning and even if we could flip a switch and get a fully green production/consumption system tomorrow we would still be faced with decades of problems from climate change.
Well, hybrids are significantly more efficient than equivalent conventional gasoline cars, but they still burn gas derived from tar sands oil and emit large quantities of GHGs. Cars that run on natural gas are more and more burning fracking gas with a carbon footprint similar to burning coal.
As for the electric car, I saw one on the road last week. A special occasion. I don't think they even make up 1% of new cars sold.
cancer. an enormous amount of money spent on trying to find a cure. it would make sense that until a magical cure is found we should concentrate more on prevention.
this is not rocket science. it is just common sense, that a small child could understand. unfortunately, common sense is something that a lot of our decision makers are lacking.