Last week, without warning, I encountered a row of bright yellow lane dividers as I was approaching the George Massey tunnel southbound. I had no idea why they were placed there or how they might impact my exit from the highway.
It turned out in order to take the 17A exit I had to quickly cross two lanes of busy traffic at the last minute.
A few days later heading northbound into the tunnel in the left lane. I realized it was lucky I wasn’t taking the Steveston exit because I would have missed it.
That explained why I saw motorists frantically changing lanes in the tunnel at high speed.
It’s totally unacceptable that there is no advanced warning or signage informing motorists about the plastic bollards and how they impact your drive.
For the next month the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure is upgrading the lane control system at a whopping cost of $10 million. Excuse me, how much?
One might conclude that there will be no new tunnel in the near future because all I see is upgrades to the existing tunnel.
Thankfully Mayor George Harvie agrees this latest ‘improvement’ project has been handled poorly and he’s taken the ministry to task over it.
I genuinely wonder if we will see work begin on a new crossing anytime soon.
There’s a provincial election in October and Premier David Eby has started campaigning with daily camera-ready announcements spending on everything except our tunnel.
Why is it so hard for this government to commit money to transportation infrastructure, and when they finally decide to spend it, it takes a decade to complete.
People are moving here in droves, and not only do we have a lack of housing for them, but we also don’t have transportation systems to move them around.
I’m sick of the stalling. We need action not politics to get a tunnel built. Step it up.
Editor’s note: Ingrid Abbott is a writer who dreams of light rail
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