Get Moving BC

Bridging the Infrastructure Gap

Our thanks to Jordan Bateman for taking the lead as our spokesperson with the media on our bridge study earlier this week (Bridging the Infrastructure Gap). We’re thrilled with the coverage and the public reception our study has received. We’ve had lots of positive comments from supporters and the general public, and people are genuinely appreciative of our efforts to provide an organised voice for the majority of people in the Lower Mainland who support improving our roads, bridges and transit systems as part of a balanced transportation system.

You can read Jordan’s comments about the whirlwind of activity on Monday and Tuesday on his Langley Politics dotcom website.

Of course, there are those who do not agree with the majority viewpoint we represent which favours adding to our bridge supply in the Lower Mainland, and they’ve been blogging furiously, and angrily, about our new study all week.

Blogger Eric Doherty from the Livable blog, for example, basically just calls us names in his blog posting about our study and then denounces us for having opinions that differ from his. He even proposes a wild theory that our ad hoc group pulled together a detailed 47 page study on bridge infrastructure in less than a day just to counter Surrey Mayor Diane Watts? Does Mr. Doherty really believe this is true or even possible? Our bridge study took a year’s worth of volunteer time and effort to collect the data and compile the report!

Mr. Doherty also seems kind of angry that there are people out there who don’t agree with him. But at least he admits that he hasn’t looked closely at our study yet. We certainly hope he does take a look and that he can then engage in constructive dialogue about the complete range of transportation infrastructure needed in a balanced transportation system for the Lower Mainland.

Blogger Nathan Pachal’s South Fraser blog thankfully refrains from immature name-calling. In fact, Mr. Pachal makes a sincere effort to grapple with the material contained in our study. However, we feel he hasn’t fully grasped some of what the study is saying about bridge capacity across the Fraser River. Put simply: a water barrier is a barrier to transportation regardless of how wide the river it spans. To cross a water barrier, whether on foot, on bike, in a car or truck, or even in a bus or riding in a SkyTrain car requires some sort of bridge infrastructure. Water barriers are an impediment to transportation whether they are 300 feet across or 3 kilometres across, and other cities, like Edmonton with its deep ravine that must be spanned, face their own construction challenges.

Yes, we have a big river to cross and it’s expensive to do that, but we also have a very large and growing population. We need more bridges, plain and simple and we need to be planning ahead for the future. We need to make these investments. If the $1.5 billion we currently waste on traffic congestion costs in the Lower Mainland were spent instead on new transportation infrastructure we’d be in great shape in no time. Most people get this. Unfortunately, a small minority don’t and they tend to hold stubbornly to what can only be called “the magic bus” plan which they suggest will miraculously solve all of the Lower Mainland’s transportation woes.

Blogger Kim Richter’s Langley Free Press blog posting about our study reverts back to name-calling and denouncing people for the opinions they hold, just as in Mr. Doherty’s blog posting on the Livable blog. As with Mr. Doherty, Ms. Richter doesn’t seem to like it when people hold an opinion that differs from her own. And she certainly seems to have particular hate on for Jordan (Bateman)...

We certainly hope Ms. Richter will take the time to read and consider our study: it took us a year to collect all the data and compile the report and we are confident that our study presents valuable, accurate and valid insights into the question of the transportation infrastructure needs of the Lower Mainland. Most people get what we are saying in our study. Many of them experience it on a daily basis. The number of bridge lanes available to a given population to cross a significant water barrier is an entirely reasonable measure to put forward as a point of discussion and comparison. Just ask anyone who has to contend with the lack of bridge lanes crossing the Fraser River on a regular basis.

Finally, we have blogger Stephen Rees who also responds to our study with name-calling and what appears to be palpable anger. We get the sense that the only view that can possibly be correct for Mr. Rees is his own. No others need apply. Unfortunately, denouncing people for who they are (or what they are imagined to be), or denouncing them for what they believe, is neither tolerant nor productive.

At Get Moving BC we believe it’s an exciting time in the transportation history of the Lower Mainland. We finally have some new bridge infrastructure being added across the Fraser River for the first time in a quarter century, and a new bridge across the Pitt River as well. We have a new SkyTrain line that will soon be in operation from Richmond to Vancouver. And the $14 billion Transit Plan announced earlier this year will add considerably to our region’s rapid transit and transit infrastructure, and will bring the expanding SkyTrain network to the Tri-Cities and further east into Surrey and Langley. We support these projects and we know the majority of people in the Lower Mainland do as well.

Over the past year, our ad hoc group has been building public support for its efforts. We have a couple dozen active volunteers who help out with our efforts, over and above the six people who volunteered to sit on Get Moving BC’s advisory committee. We also have more than 400 active supporters from across the political spectrum who’ve taken the time to contact us and offer their encouragement and their comments on the transportation issues we face in the Lower Mainland. We hope to increase on all of these over the coming year.

As our Bridging the Infrastructure Gap study released this past week shows, we are way behind where we should be with our transportation infrastructure in the Lower Mainland and we need to catch up. Then we need to stay caught up by always looking ahead and planning for our transportation needs in a growing region. As Jordan Bateman said, we can’t allow ourselves to fall so far behind by leaving generational gaps between the improvements we make to our transportation infrastructure. But name calling and ad hominem denunciations will not get us there and we hope the critics will take some time to consider our viewpoint just as we do theirs. Focusing on the facts not the attacks will be far more productive for all concerned.

Overall, we think Tuesday’s editorial in the Province sums things up best:

Let's trump the bridge gap

The Province

Published: Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Just because the transportation group, Get Moving B.C., has ties to the B.C. Liberals doesn't mean we should ignore the results of its new study which warns that "total gridlock" throughout the Lower Mainland looms unless we build more bridges across the Fraser River.

Anyone who commutes daily over the Fraser knows full well that the eight regional bridges now in use are woefully inadequate to handle the traffic volumes.

And as the study -- Bridging the Infrastructure Gap -- points out, even with the addition of the new Golden Ears Bridge in 2009 along with replacement of the aging Pattullo Bridge and twinning the Port Mann Bridge within the decade, the Lower Mainland will still be behind the eight-ball in terms of too few bridges.

In fact, the study concludes that in addition to the current bridge expansion projects, a further three new eight-lane bridges need to the built.

Most of that additional lane capacity needs to be constructed across the Fraser River because another one million people will take up residence south of the Fraser over the next few decades.

The study tells us that compared to four other western Canadian cities -- Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Saskatoon -- Metro Vancouver is extremely poorly served by its bridges.

For example, while Metro Vancouver has more than twice Calgary's population, it's served by fewer that half the number of bridge lanes (31 to Calgary's 75).

Even Edmonton, with half as many people as Metro Vancouver, has 60 per cent more bridges. And on a per capita basis, one Vancouver bridge lane serves 74,194 people compared with Edmonton (26,190), Winnipeg (18,000), Calgary (14,667) and Saskatoon (10,909).

But environmentalists slam this report on the basis of its political connections to the B.C. Liberals and on the premise that if more commuters abandoned their cars in favour of public transit, bridge expansions wouldn't be necessary.

Although well-intentioned, this is wishful thinking and it ignores the reality that this entire region will continue to grow rapidly for many years.

This means there will be more trucks delivering our groceries and other products to super markets and shopping centres and they'll need additional bridge capacity. And yes, additional commuter buses will also need more bridge lanes to cross local waters.

The point is even with expanded use of public transit, there will be more cars so we'll still need more bridges.

It's time our politicians recognized this need and started an intelligent and practical
planning process.

© The Vancouver Province 2008

posted by Get Moving BC @ 12:54 PM