Stephen Rees’s blog

Delta Council decided this evening to refer back to staff recommendations to extend the environmental review process and delay the port expansion by five years. There was some discussion at the beginning of the meeting which I missed. According to Ben West, a lot of people left at that point, but more trickled in later. But even so I find it hard to accept that the hall would have been filled.

The mood was depressing. The process of the SFPR was left on the agenda and when they got to that I sat down in the public section. About thirty people were distributed about these seats.

Mayor Jackson said that several years ago Delta made its preference for an upgrade of Highway #17 rather than the SFPR. That was ignored. Since that time the Council has done its best to work within the process since the province has been determined to build what it wants, and there is no discussion of other ways to achieve the project’s objectives. Delta has therefore tried its best to ensure that local concerns are addressed. While some progress has been achieved, much remains to be done yet the draft EA report is now presented in near final form with only two weeks to provide final comments. A final report will then be submitted to the Minister who has 45 days for a review. An environmental certificate is expected to be issued in June.

The comments and requests made by Delta are summarised in the report. All the information is also on the municipal web page. It is expected that the EA working group will continue to meet after the certificate has been issued. There are at least 17 different plans in various stages of development to mitigate some of the impacts of the project.

Councillor Robert Campbell described the alignemnt near Burns Bog as a tug of war between environment and agriculture - and either way it was a major loss. It could have been avoided if the recommendations of the McAlhenny Report on an upgraded HIghway #17 had been accepted. It was achievable and with minimal impact.

Mayor Jackson responded that the Province chose to ignore that report. The GVRD and the BC Truckers Association both supported the Highway #17 proposal. The staff also produced a compelling report. She felt that both documents should be “brought forward” - which presumably means included in the Delta comments on the EA .

The staff pointed out that they only had two weeks to respond. Moreover they have not “been privy to discussions between the Gateway and Environment Canada”.

Councillor Krista Engelland asked what was the role of the EAO after the certificate is issued.

The staff response was that the EAO has an obligation to see that the conditions imposed on the project are upheld, but the regulatory agencies have the lead.

Councillor George Hawksworth spoke at length about the process pointing out that it was designed to make the project work, “not to kill the project”. He emphasized: “At no time were we in a position to kill the project. For a lot of people it is not satisfactory.” Staff responded that Council took every step possible, and was supported by the GVRD in its attempt to ensure that the OCP would be respected. The province ignored it.

Mayor Jackson shared the frustration: “We have no leverage.”

Councillor Vicki Huntington said that the EA had been a frustrating porcess. “It is unprecented and unconscionable to have to chose between the bog or the farmers. For five years we have been tearing our hair out. The process has nothing to do with the legislation.” The EAO cannot look at alternatives, only the project as proposed. “The whole process is designed to mitigate, not say yea or nay. We know this is wrong.” The province’s commitment to the ALR is worthless. Both the Council and the public worked hard to develop viable alternatives that would have worked but they were never considered. Alternatives did not matter. “We did not say ‘you can’t build this project’ but we did say there was a way to do it properly that would not destroy the community. And what value is this ‘monitoring’? Does that mean that something will stop? The ‘responsible authorities’ turn out to be bureaucrats in the DFO and Transport Canada. It is unbelievable that it is not the Minister.”

Councillor Huntington is also Chair of the Heritage Advisory Commission. “95% of the built heritage is impacted by the Gateway. It will irreparably change North Delta. “

She went on that there is public dissappointment. The public is not yet ready to give up. “We needed leadership. Sadly that has not happened. We did the best we could. I am heartbroken.”

Mayor Jackson pointed out that many times Delta had tried to speak to the ministers, “but we could not get Victoria to listen”. She also pointed out that the Holger Naas route would not have worked “the trucks don’t go there.” And the impact on farms along Ladner trunk Road would have been signifivant.

It occurred to me afterwards that Holger and Naas had taken the proponents at their word, that the trucks were headed for the border or the TransCanada. In fact, as we now know, that movement is insignificant. The trucks are simply moving containers around within the region. The long haul is on rail. In other words, the entire justification of the roads component of the Gateway is based on a lie. The Holger Naas alternative makes sense only if the Gateway was really going to increase truck travel to the the rest of North America. And with the rising price of fuel, and rail’s significant advantage in fuel economy, that is simply not going to happen.

Councillor Jeanie Kanakos said that they should request a meeting with Falcon and Emerson and make a presentation on all the outstanding issues which the EA has not resolved. While this was generally accepted as a useful idea it seemed unlikely to happen. As the Mayor said: “They don’t want to meet with us.”

Councillor Scott Hamilton said they had played into the government’s hands. They had had to fight many battles at once, but they could not turn their backs on the need to mitigate a project that was going to proceed anyway. “We can’t just fight the project. And we can’t stop them”. He also pointed out that no-one is conducting an assessment of the cumulative impact of all the Gateway projects taken together.

It seemed clear to me that the high turn out on Saturday in Tsawwassen had impressed Council. It was clearly not just about power lines (and by the way the CBC is reporting that Campbell has announced they will proceed). Building a large port on the Pacific Flyway is grossly irresponsible. Building a large port that is not likely to be needed, given the way that trans-pacific trade is going to change is short sighted. Deciding to add new port facilities in Vancouver, when there are under utilised facilities in Prince Rupert which desperately needs more work, while Vancouver continues to be over-heated, just seems like willful stupidity. This is a provincial government that seems to have abandoned any pretence of caring about what it used to like to call “the heartland”. Come to think of it, I don’t think they have used that word lately. It is also very blinkered when it comes to the environment. Climate change is very au courant, so they go for that, but salmon, sandpipers and bogs do not rate at all. The ALR is for building things on and trading to get treaties. As are regional parks. This is a government entirely devoid of principle. And since it is a one man show, just one man should get the blame.

The Daily News

The release of the latest census data last week showed that the average family in Prince Rupert has significantly less income than it did five years ago, and local politicians say they’ll continue to fight for their rural constituents to redress the imbalance.

“The average family in Rupert between 2001 and 2006 lost on average $6,000 of income, and in some communities like the Queen Charlottes it was even worse,” said Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP Nathan Cullen. “This confirms just how hard hit our region has been, and it also confirms to me that the federal government is right to continue putting support money into our region, because the numbers don’t lie and the region needs the help.”

According to Statistics Canada, the median income in B.C. fell by 3.4 per cent between 2000 and 2005, with the 12.7 per cent drop in Prince Rupert putting it among the worst hit.

Well now, isn’t that timely. Prince Rupert desperately needs more work. It is a a whole day’s sailing closer to the Asian Pacific Rim ports and has a better railway connection to the rest of North America over the eay grades of the Yellowhead Pass.

All we have to do is cancel the Vancouver Gateway - which by any measure is not only destructive but not needed here. The port expansion and the road “improvements” tied to it are environmental disasters. The local economy is still vastly overheated with shortages of affordable housing and labour. Further stimulus by a mega projects that meet no local needs but introduce much more road traffic is a complete waste of resources, when somewhere like Prince Rupert already has the necessary port and infrastructure and needs the work. The Vancouver Port people should be told that the need of Prince Rupert to survive trumps their greed, and that they should stop competing for their traffic.

This gets top billing in today’s Province news section, although it concentrates on the power lines issue. There is also no coverage of anything that was actually said at the rally itself. However a turnout of 2,000 people is not to be disregarded lightly.

The big feature in that paper today is on housing affordability.

The thing that caught my eye in the Delta Optimist was the design charrette for the Southlands run by Andres Duany and an opinion piece on the development that is not against Smart Growth so much as the removal of the land from the ALR twenty years ago.

Of course people who live next to open land are against its development. That is always true in the suburbs. Not so much “after me, no more” but “don’t spoil the view I now have”. If you are lucky enough to own a home that had all the advantages of an urban area but you can kid yourself you live in the country, naturally you do not want that illusion spoiled. And much of the opposition to growth or density in the suburbs is fear of the growth of traffic, although traffic has been growing rapidly in areas which have seen very little development. More trips are being made, and those trips are getting longer - so the VKT increases would happen anyway even if the population wasn’t growing. And of course those terribly expensive large single family homes often have stay at home kids, or grannies in the basement, if not mortgage helpers in “secondary suites” (see Province article cited above). And those big houses have multiple car garages, and plenty of parking spaces too.

But what get people really out of sorts is that not only is transit in this area poor but it is going to get worse, not better, as a result of Translink’s expansion program.

It seems to me that all this is the inevitable result of allowing the region to be developed not in accordance with a well organised, up to date regional strategy that is designed to create a sustainable region (in other words what should have grown out of the LRSP long ago but still hasn’t) but rather in reaction to all kinds of business interests - ports, developers, private sector power providers, private sector transportation companies - who are more concerned about making money than anything else. The people of Delta are upset because no-one is listening to their concerns, and all that is happening in their community seems to be for the benefit of someone else. The consultation and environmental assessment processes are now a very obvious sham - merely a PR exercise to make it look as though someone is consulting and listening, when actually it’s always a Done Deal.

Sun

I did get an invite to the Board of Trade for this speech - but they charge a lot for attendance. I do not think I need to pay to listen to a commercial.

Worth quoting

“Mobility is a critical issue for any region striving to be a true player on the global stage,” Betler said. However, when it comes to moving people, transportation systems in regions such as Metro Vancouver are out of whack and weighted too heavily toward roads. Traffic congestion is one of the results, the cost of which has been calculated at $700 million to $1.2 billion per year in the Metro Vancouver region.

“We simply can’t build enough roads to accommodate the volume of people that need to have access to our urban centres,” Betler said. “Not today and certainly not when you consider what’s coming in the future.”
Transit trains, he added, can help balance out the transportation formula. A modern transit system, he said, can carry 40,000 people per hour heading in either direction, versus 6,000 people driving on a two-lane highway during the same time frame.

Betler did not disparage the province’s other transportation plan, the Asia Pacific Gateway Strategy, which calls for new perimetre [misspelled in the original] roads, twinning of the Port Mann Bridge and expansion of the freeway. “[Transportation is] personal preference,” he added. “But at some point in time, economics and environmental conditions are going to force a solution.”

Transportation is a lot more than personal choice. Transportation shapes development. Transit makes denser, walkable centres possible. Building freeways means there has to be more parking and more vehicle circulation space - and roads which are designed to deter through traffic on distributors. The dendritic street pattern that gives rise to low density sprawl. We need rail based transit systems; not so that  Bombardier can make more money, but to secure a future that is sustainable and does not threaten the ALR and the Green Zone. Trains and trams can run on electricity which can be generated from a wide variety of sources. At the moment that is not a very practical or economic option for road vehicles - and that includes my beloved trolleybuses.

“Making a pitch” is a waste of effort if we have an objective, fact based bid appraisal process. It is not that the lowest price should win: there must be a value for money evaluation. Some things are worth paying extra for.

We do not need the Gateway. We do need a livable, sustainable and affordable region.

Canadian Geographic

Canada’s first modern, urban treaty gives the Tsawwassen First Nation control of its land and the chance at a prosperous future

The hat tip goes to Damien Gillis who alerted me to this in depth analysis which includes his video of Bertha Williams, which I linked to some time ago.

This treaty was driven by the Gateway process - not any concern for the TFN. The collapse of the US dollar ought to be the danger signal that makes the port start to doubt its forecasts. The airport has a much more prgamatic approach - it does not start the next stage of expansion until the demand is clear, and is very reluctant to attach dates to projects in their plan. They expand at need, not on a whim.

I have also been noting here how the flawed environmental assessment and the cavalier rush to construction will have a dramatic effect on the Pacific Flyway and the feeding grounds of the sandpipers. Given this government’s shabby record on issues like farmed salmon and the Sea to Sky don’t expect much noise from our designated environmental agencies where the staff are more concerned with hanging on to their pay cheques than actually doing anything effective. At one time professional public servants acted in the best interests of the province. Now they are little better than lackeys to their political masters.

Well worth spending some time on the in depth coverage.

Sun

There is so much wrong with the South Fraser Perimeter Road that anywhere else this would be the issue that stopped it. In the Ontario EA process for a site search project I did - admittedly some years ago now - we decided to go for a site that was so comprehensively disturbed and so far from streams that there was no chance of archaelogical remains. Indeed one of the first EAs I worked on here at Bamberton on Vancouver Island, it was the First Nations concerns that made the proponent give up, because they realised that mitigation was simply not possible. Sacred sites are like that.

But the SFPR has impacts on existing communities, on a unique and fragile ecosystem, on farmland - but all of that is not enough to get the MoT to even consider the available alternative route, let alone the flawed case that it is needed at all. And the presence of a line in an old plan (which had not examined any of these issues) should have no effect on the appraisal. By any measure, the SFPR has failed to meet any reasonable standard of evaluation.

It amazes me that Metro Vancouver has not joined the fight. How can you talk about a future sustainable region and have the advocates of the Gateway on the platform? There is nothing about the Gateway that is even remotely connected to sustainability. And the government’s claim that it will reduce local air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions has been shown to be false. Use a flawed set of assumptions (there will be no induced traffic, there will be no change in land use)m and you get forecasts which no one with any understanding of the history of urban growth can accept. Indeed, I am certain that both Gordon Campbell and Kevin Falcon know that, but regard their indebtedness to the business community as being more important than their responsibilities to the wider community.

The most depressing aspect of all this to me is the attitude of the First Nations. But these are their concerns - and I understand that they feel that a newcomer like me has no standing in this discussion. It is not my story to tell. I just wish that they would tell their story more forcefully and publicly. The lack of comment in this Sun piece is distressing, for this was an opportunity to take and possibly make some change. The Juggernaut of the Gateway needs some obstacles thrown in its path, to slow its progress before it flattens us all. We know this government does not care about the environment, or the community. But there are some groups that have to listen to - and that is not the farmers, or the defenders of Burns Bog, or the people who live along the present chosen route. They can expect to be ignored - and have been. But the reality of the present treaty process does give the First Nations a voice. And a voice that has power.

It needs to be heard along the Fraser.

NOW

Matt Burrows of the Straight has a very perceptive piece on Bill 14, the  “Transportation Investment (Port Mann Twinning) Amendment Act”

When you have a majority in the leg, and you do not give a stuff about what anybody else thinks or says, you can get away, it seems, with almost anything.

Province

(The sub-editors at the Province are even worse than the Sun!)

Faced with the damning reports on what it will do to Burns Bog the province is having second thoughts about the South Fraser Perimeter Road. Not abandoning it as completely unnecessary, of course. Or rerouting it via the Holger Nass proposal of following the railway tracks.

The lamebrains at the MoT have now decided to reroute the SFPR over prime agricultural land. Which as far as dealing with opposition to the road is concerned is jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

[MoT is] faced with significant criticism from Environment Canada, which earlier this year said in a report that even remedial work contemplated by the B.C. government won’t protect Burns Bog, which is often described as “the lungs of the Lower Mainland” for its ability to offset climate change.

However, a B.C. Ministry of Transportation spokeswoman would only confirm yesterday that some SFPR re-alignment is under consideration. She declined to give details.

The Delta Farmers Institute is also appealing to John Cummings, the Conservative MP for Delta Richmond East, and through him to five federal cabinet ministers, including Environment Minister John Baird and International Trade/Gateway Minister David Emerson.

The Gateway program depends on demand for cross Pacific trade to grow. It is currently declining. It depends on Vancouver taking a greater share of US destined traffic. US demand is falling, the US dollar is falling, and new routes through the North West Passage and an enlarged Panama Canal are opening up. Prince Rupert offers both a shorter sail from the Asian rim ports and a more direct route to the midwest over an easier pass. The port expansion threatens a unique habitat and migratory bird feeding ground. The SFPR threatens Burns Bog and communities in North Delta and North Surrey. The Port Mann twinning and the Highway #1 expansion is based on a fictional demand forecast that bears no relation to North American urban experience with freeway widening, and has been criticised by Health Canada and Environment Canada. Global climate change is accelerating, and our fossil fuel consumption continues to rise, threatening the very area that the road and the port would occupy with a rising sea level.

I think they have enough problems without taking on the farmers too. Any sane administration by now would have admitted its assumptions have been shown to be wrong, and backed away from the project.

“When circumstances change, I change my mind. What do you do?”

Photo by Squeaky Marmot

Photo by Rob Baxter

Activists use “reverse graffiti” etched in grime on freeway overpasses, transit hubs and pedestrian walks to pressure for change in priorities

April 14, 2008

Vancouver- Morning commuters were asked to call upon Premier Gordon Campbell to finally come clean on the Gateway Program and make transit expansion a priority over freeway expansion through the use of a guerrilla marketting technique called “reverse graffiti”.

“Gordon Campbell must come clean on Gateway and admit that it is a glaring inconsistency in our climate change era,” said David Fields. ” The end of cheap oil and an American recession further undermines the rationale for a massive road and bridge building mega project. Gordon Campbell can truly be a first mover on climate change by making transit expansion a priority over Gateway.”

Back in 2004, the provincial government decided to build the Gateway Program, a $7 billion mega-project that will expand and build new freeways, twin the Port Mann Bridge and enable a tripling of port capacity in Delta. Since then, Premier Gordon Campbell has changed his tune on climate change by legislating a 33% reduction in BC’s global warming emissions by 2020. To this end, a carbon tax and a $14 billion transit investment by 2030 have been introduced but these measures and others under consideration are still not enough to meet the target. Despite this, the Premier has so far failed to admit the inconsistencies posed by the Gateway Program when even a provincial government study has shown that emissions will increase. Metro Vancouver and Environment Canada have said that emissions could be even worse because of potential land-use impacts the provincial study ignored.

The standard model used in the government study did not ask the basic questions that people ask themselves: “Where will I live?” and “Where will I start my business?” If the model didn’t ask the same questions people do then clearly it isn’t good enough. There is not a single example of a freeway reducing traffic congestion or reducing sprawl- the opposite is apparent wherever you look. A local example is the Alex Fraser Bridge. A 2% increase in traffic was expected, based upon population projections. However, unanticipated development brought on by the new bridge has resulted in a traffic increase 41% above projections. Regional developers know full well the impacts of freeway building and released a report in 2006 called “The Gateway Effect” that anticipates “explosive growth” in the Fraser Valley. Given that 85% of the Highways Minister’s election funding has come from developers and road builders, it would appear that he is likewise aware but won’t admit it publicly.

“The Gateway Program is outdated and out of touch with modern realities. To move forward with freeway expansion in its current form is merely another kind of climate change denial. The evidence shows that Gateway is more spin than span and a re-think of our approach on transportation in the region is overdue,” Fields said.

Electric pressure washers and stencils were used to etch the slogans “Gordo, Come Clean on Gateway” and “Transit First” into the grime on sidewalks and freeway overpasses.

-23-

This release is accompanied by the document “Top Ten Myths of the Gateway Program”

For more information, please contact:

David Fields, Campaigner with SPEC, 604-722-4775