A bridge to replace the aging George Massey Tunnel is scheduled to open in 2022, but is the $3.5-billion structure being built to move traffic across the Fraser River or along it?
That’s a question that’s gaining traction these days as critics of the bridge plan, and the subsequent removal of the tunnel, are wondering whether the provincial project has more to do with ships than cars.
“The provincial motivation for the bridge is clear,” says Doug Massey, whose late father George was the driving force behind the tunnel’s construction back in the 1950s. “Where is the motivation for Delta to support this costly edifice to move deep draft container traffic?”
The biggest bridge project in B.C. history at more than three kilometres in length, construction of the tolled, 10-lane span, which includes a series of road and overpass projects as well as capacity for rapid transit, is scheduled to begin next year.
Massey says heavy lobbying from industry, with little or no input from the public, Metro Vancouver or TransLink, led Victoria toward a bridge that will improve access to industrial properties on the lower Fraser River.
He is also upset about plans to demolish the tunnel, which can no longer handle traffic volumes and doesn’t meet seismic standards, once the bridge is built.
“The George Massey Tunnel would only be an impediment if and when Port Metro Vancouver and their associates were given permission to dredge the lower Fraser River deeper to 14.5 metres now and deeper in the future as the need arose, in their opinion.”
Massey, who has been gathering documentation to support his argument, says he’s frustrated with policies that will destroy the ecosystem of the Fraser River, adding that as late as 2006 the province’s long range plan included tunnel expansion to six lanes.
The Burns Bog Conservation Society is also raising questions, creating a website that notes instead of replacing a tunnel with a bridge, the government of the Netherlands is upgrading a tunnel at a cost of $262 million Euros – about $420 million Canadian.
“Is a new bridge over the Fraser River the best place to spend our limited public infrastructure dollars? Can we upgrade the Massey Tunnel instead and spend the money saved on other projects, like public transit?” the society asks.
“The B.C. government says that the bridge is being built to benefit commuters, but the port and industrial users of the Fraser River are clearly going to benefit if this project goes ahead. They should have to pay for a big portion of the cost of this bridge.”
The environmental group Voters Taking Action on Climate Change has been echoing those concerns, last year making public documents it obtained that suggest the port asked the government for a bridge several metres higher than what has been proposed to accommodate taller liquefied natural gas transport ships at a proposed terminal in Delta.
Port Metro Vancouver president and CEO Robin Silvester told the Optimist the port was among those consulted about the potential bridge design, but says the constraints of the river, including depth and turning radius, limit the size of ships that can ply the waterway.
“We would like to be able to fully load the size of ships that we can get up the river, which is the current Panamax ships, but the idea that they’re going to be super tankers or mega ships going up the river is just rubbish. It’s completely misplaced because you couldn’t turn them around.
“When the province asked us about how big the bridge should be, what we looked at was what’s the largest air draft – the distance above the water – that a ship going up the river could foreseeably need.
Two types of ships we look at there: One was a cruise ship, because we can see in the long-term maybe having a cruise ship terminal on the river. The other was an LNG ship. Between cruise ships and LNG ships, they have the highest height above the water.”
But does that mean dredging?
Not according to port chief financial officer Allan Baydala, who in open letter on the port’s website says that while the removal of the tunnel may create greater depth at that point in the river, the amount of dredging required on either side could be extensive and potentially cost prohibitive.
Port Metro Vancouver spends $15 million annually to dredge the river to its current depth of about 11.5 metres, recouping a big chunk of that by selling the sand.
In 2014, Fraser Surrey Docks and the Surrey Board of Trade went to Ottawa to pitch for additional federal money for extra dredging that would deepen the river to 13.5 metres.
George Massey Tunnel Replacement Project director Geoff Freer told the Optimist there’s no plan to dredge the river even deeper, noting it would be a huge, costly undertaking because the entire river would need to be dredged.
As far as the tunnel being removed to allow bigger ships, Freer notes the tunnel has settled and is under the floor of river, so it’s not sticking up and ships wouldn’t be scraping it anyway.
Having a new bridge the same height as the Alex Fraser will dictate what can be accommodated ship-wise, he says.
Freer says a new tunnel would have to be built further upriver or downstream, which would have meant the loss of farmland. It would have also required a much deeper channel to meet today’s seismic standards.
Freer says a new bridge and a new tunnel would have had roughly the same price tag but a tunnel would have had higher risks and consequences.
The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure hasn’t denied the movement of goods by water was taken into consideration when deciding on a crossing, stating in its Project Definition Report that a number of industries – including container import/export, auto import/export and breakbulk exports – use the Fraser River as a marine highway.
Consistent with Port Metro Vancouver’s Land Use Plan, more intensive use of sites on the south arm of the Fraser River can be anticipated to support continued growth in Canada’s trade, the Project Definition Report notes.
As to why the current tunnel can’t be maintained for local traffic or transit use, the report explains keeping it would require significant rehabilitation and ongoing operating costs, and the tunnel would still not meet current seismic standards.
Transportation Minister Todd Stone recently wrote to the Optimist saying a bridge can be constructed with minimal disturbance in the Fraser River, something that can’t be said of a new tunnel.
“In short, we thoroughly reviewed the benefits of all options,” Stone wrote. “A bridge will be safer, more seismically sound, more environmentally friendly, and more cost effective than a replacement tunnel.”
