BCTA fighting for the Mann

LANGLEY, B.C. (Oct. 4, 2004) — A slice of the $600 million dedicated to upgrading B.C.’s Sea-to-Sky Highway in advance of the 2010 Winter Olympics should go towards other vital transportation links in the Lower Mainland, says the chief of the B.C. Trucking Association.

Among the projects needing major improvement, BCTA President Paul Landry cited the twinning of the Trans-Canada Highway between Kamloops and the Alberta border, improvements at the Massey Tunnel, construction of the South Perimeter Road along the south bank of the Fraser River, and twinning of the Port Mann Bridge — which the association believes should be the top priority.

“There’s four projects that we think provide economic benefits that are consistent with the costs that would be involved in terms of improving them,” he says. “And then I look at the Sea-to-Sky highway. It isn’t a freight transportation route for us.”

The Port Mann Bridge plan would link industry on either side of the Fraser River with the Trans-Canada Highway and commercial centres in the rest of Canada and the U.S.

Landry says the bridge must be twinned “because it’s the most congested piece of road in British Columbia.” According to B.C.’s Ministry of Transportation, 127,000 vehicles cross the bridge every day.

“Every day traffic is backed up for 50 blocks and just crawling towards the bridge going west bound,” he says. “It’s like that in the morning as people try to cross the bridge to get from Langley and Surrey, Chilliwack and the rest of Canada into Vancouver. It’s just crazy.”

While Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon announced his support for the project, local politicians “went into a flap” when they heard the proposal, Landry says. “It confirmed our worst fears that these local politicians do not want to see roads built in the Lower Mainland,” he said, adding that, traditionally, municipal politicians believe the solution to congestion “is more public transit.”

The BC government says the solution to Lower Mainland congestion is the Gateway Program, a set of strategic road and bridge projects along and across the Fraser River and home to some of the region’s worst traffic bottlenecks. These proposed projects would reduce travel times over the Fraser River during peak periods and improve access to key economic gateways through improved links between ports, industrial areas, intermodal yards, railways, airports and border crossings.

Preliminary estimates suggest the projects would cost in the range of $3 billion. Once the scope and costs have been confirmed, the Ministry of Transportation says it will work with local governments and stakeholders to identify means of paying for the projects.