Stephen Rees’s blog

Globe and Mail

All entirely predictable – in fact I am pretty sure I have predicted this in the past.

U.S. port officials yesterday brought their complaints against Canada to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, making the case that government help for ports such as Vancouver is partly to blame for a decline in business at American terminals.

Perhaps the most revealing statement from the Port of Vancouver’s spokesperson is “the fact that almost all imports arriving in Vancouver are bound for Canadian destinations”. Which is not at all what has been admitted by the proponents of the Gateway. Which of course includes the Port of Vancouver. The whole case for port expansion at Deltaport is that shippers will save time and money coming through the new facilities as opposed to using US ports further south. The whole ethos of the Gateway is based on how we are better placed to compete for trans-Pacific trade than they are.

Actually US ports get a lot more subsidy than Canadian ports – but do not expect that to get in the way of this fight. In tough times, the US turns protectionist – as we have already seen with the restriction of the use of federal stimulus funding to “buy American”. In fact when the same policies have been applied to the transportation business, US business has not done well. For instance, the protection provided by various Transportation Acts to reserve federal capital spending for US built buses did not help preserve bus building companies – rather the opposite. Big, heavy inefficient buses with much dirtier engines than their European counterparts have been the result – and more foreign ownership with final assembly and other dodges to try and get around requirements of percentage of US content.

We have also seen how these fights go – just look at softwood lumber and how Canada caved. The facts and realities have nothing to do with who wins these fights. But US protectionism is also going to hurt their own ports too. The economic recovery  is going to have to be based in large part on import replacement – if only because no-one is going to be willing to finance US trade deficits as they have in the past. Imports are way down – and well never recover to pre-recession levels, especially if the US gets serious abut living within its means and  finding employment for its huge skilled and currently idle workforce.

More and more it looks like the Gateway is going to be a white elephant. I wonder how long it will take for this realization to dawn in Victoria? Think they will back down?

Vancouver Sun

Of course this is exactly what opponents of the Gateway always said would happen. 
 

Artist's rendering of a proposed $170-million, 600,000-square-foot shopping mall near Abbotsford's Mount Lehman interchange.

“The potential regional draw for that centre is enormous,” Abbotsford Mayor George Peary said in an interview about the $170-million, 600,000-square-foot Shape Properties development, dubbed Abby Lane.

“It’s huge and it’s got amazing freeway access. I think this will be the largest mall in the region. It will be relatively easy for people to get there from Langley, Chilliwack and Mission. Millions travel that freeway and they’re all potential customers.”

And for the Mayor that seems like a Good Thing. For many however, it seems like a very Bad Thing indeed. For a start the freeway between Langley and Abbotsford runs through what is currently green space. In many parts of the world that is seen as a desirable quality – and there has been legislation (in the UK and other places) to stop “ribbon development” and the gradual coalescence of places into “megalopolis”. That indeed has been one of the main principles in regional planning of both Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley.

But also very significant is the recognition of the traffic generation this kind of development produces – which is something that the Gateway proponents have tried to ignore or at least downplay: “it happens anyway”. Well you might try telling that to the stores that will close in those places. The amount of time and money that people have to spend shopping is finite. The money that gets spent in Abby Lane won’t get spent elsewhere. You can see this all over North America – in fact, thanks to the economic decline of recent years, the process has accelerated. There are already too many shops – and older malls and town centres have been in steady decline. Even in good times that happens – and one of the features of North American buildings is their very short design life. So when the two new plazas at No 5 Road and Steveston Highway opened, the shopping centre at Shell and Williams closed, was demolished and is now town houses.

Obviously if in future more people from Langley and Chilliwack decide to shop in Abbotsford that is a longer car trip than happens now. That means more pollution – both common air contaminants (the stuff that causes our current air quality advisory) and greenhouse gas emissions – that’s the stuff that means the glaciers melt and the pine beetle thrives. It is not only the polar bears that suffer! And note that this is happening beyond the reach of the Gateway project – which ends at the Langley boundary – although a new hill climber lane is being built westbound out of Abbotsford at present. So of course there will be even more pressure to widen the freeway through Abbotsford and upgrade the interchanges. That is the lesson of everywhere that has widened freeways – it creates the “need” for more widening and is never ending.

Well never ending up to now. Because the other thing that the Mayor is ignoring is that peak conventional oil has passed – and peak oil is close too. So there will not be lots of cheap gas for all those car trips. And maybe in future even the charms of yet another corporate clone big box “power centre” will be much less if if costs too much to get there. This development might not be such a good idea after all. It will certainly cause others to close – but in the not too distant future we may well not be quite so keen on shopping. We may prefer to find happiness in other ways – and relearn how to make things last longer.

It is certainly a choice – and the last election showed that most people are not yet willing to make that change voluntarily. Which means when it does come they are not going to be very happy about it at all. And  George Peary could well be the target of their wrath.

Abysmal record should see change but likely won’t

Brian Lewis, The Province

Judging by its performance, the B.C. Liberal government can’t tell one end of a cow from the other, or perhaps it believes cabbages grow in grocery stores.

How else can its inexplicable failure to protect agricultural land be explained, especially the fertile soils in the 22 provincial ridings south of the Fraser River between Delta and Hope?

The ability of Fraser Valley farmland to feed the burgeoning Lower Mainland and its future generations has been seriously constrained by a government that, frankly, has blacktop on the brain.

Read the rest. 

Cut and pasted from a Wilderness Committee E-lert:

With no contractors in place to build the South Fraser Perimeter Road (SFPR) highway as proposed in the Gateway plan but the Ministry of Transportation have begun early stages of bull dozing and laying sand along portions of the proposed route of the controversial South Fraser Perimeter Road (SFPR) highway. 

Brad Major, a local fire fighter, and professional arborist has started a small business growing Christmas trees on his families beautiful 1 acre property. Brad lives in the a lush valley close to burns bog which is in the trajectory of the proposed SFPR highway route in North Delta on the banks of the Fraser River. 

Brad is one of the residents who have been told that his property will be expropriated by the provincial government to make way for the proposed SFPR highway which would connect Delta Port to Highway 1 as part of the Gateway Project. He was contacted a week before Christmas last year by the Ministry of Transportation by phone and told they would remove him out of his home within a year. 

This Saturday Brad will be planting some of his Christmas tree seedlings  in the path of the highway as part of a reforestation project  on his property.  Brad plans to sell Christmas trees to families and then the tees would be planted on his property after the holidays if the highway has not gone ahead. Brads business would  help provide a carbon friendly Christmas for families and a healthier habitat for species in the Fraser River, Burns Bog ecosystem. 

Drop by this Saturday at 1pm  at 11059 River Road for a BBQ and a family friendly tour of Brads property and tree farm. Come see first hand a piece of what is threatened by the Gateway Project highways.  Plant a tree and check out where our Christmas trees could go if the valley is saved and the highways are stopped.  

Check out this video for more on Brad and his home at risk. 

Contact Ben West, Healthy Communities campaigner for more details 604 683 8220

Burnaby Now

How can you tell when Gordon Campbell is lying? His lips are moving.

He said that there have been concerns about the air quality impacts in Burnaby but that improving the transportation corridors will lessen the environmental impacts.

Except of course when you look at the government’s own submissions to the Environmental Assessment you realise that they based this forecast on the assumption that the total number and distance of trips in the future is exactly the same without and without the project. The project itself also forecast an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. And that only happens if you burn more fuel – which means more emissions not just of CO2 but common air contaminants as well.

What Campbell wants people to believe is that widening a freeway reduces traffic congestion. This is untrue. Whatever the short term effect is due to faster trips just after opening is more than offset by the new traffic that is generated by the facility. Traffic expands to fill the space available. Trips that are currently deterred by the prospect of having to deal with congestion will start to be made. More trips – and longer trips. This has always happened every time a new freeway or expressway is opened in urban areas. After years of freeway expansions people began to realise that the loss of neighbourhoods to construction of ever wider roads was not compensated for by any great advance in mobility. And most places then stopped building and widening freeways – and gradually urban areas improved and stabilised as a result. Some even grew vastly more popular and successful – downtown Vancouver being one of the few major cities in North America that was spared the destruction of a downtown freeway. Indeed we keep asking – and have yet had no answer – where has this policy ever worked? Just one example would do.

“We’re trying to create healthy, livable urban communities, places where people can work, live, play, where people can choose to walk to work. … You can’t do that if you don’t design your cities around that,” he said

And that means, dummy, no more freeways but build the transit first. You cannot walk to work in a highway oriented suburb: that is also why Surrey has a transit mode share of 4%. The so called “transit plan” would see SkyTrain reach Langley by 2030  - after more than 15 years of the impact of an expanded freeway. Yes we want “healthy, livable urban communities” and you only get those when you give people an alternative to driving – not encouragement to drive more. 

“Gateway is not just about a transportation strategy, it’s about wedding a transportation strategy with an urban development strategy. Surrey is going to be the second major city in British Columbia, there’s just no question about that.”

And if the freeway is widened, it will look much as it does today – only more so. More low density subdivisions, more plazas, more highway oriented development. Because you will never get transit oriented development until you build the transit. The “urban development strategy” here is simply to keep on repeating the mistakes of the past and expecting a different outcome. 

What the much expanded freeway will do is dump lots more traffic into the areas around the freeway exits. All those new trips generated by the vision of vast swathes of empty concrete have to start and end somewhere. So the street networks that feed and drain the freeway will see much heavier demand. If you think line ups on 152 Street in the early morning are bad now, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The citizens of Burnaby are right to be worried about where the traffic coming off Highway #1 will go – because it will go through where they live. The great thing about building roads is that it creates more demand which means you have to build more roads … and so it goes. That has been the history of North America in the last sixty years or more. 

Most people in this region recognize that every new freeway and bridge has resulted in more traffic – not less. Most people when asked recognise that we have under invested in transit in this region and think we should be correcting that mistake. The money spent on this one freeway project could bring light rail transit to most of Surrey and Langley. As Gordon Campbell himself noted with respect to the Canada Line – two railway tracks provide the same people moving capacity as ten lanes of freeway. (Actually most places that build rapid transit expect rather more than that.) So if that is true in Richmond why isn’t it in Surrey?

Provided to you as  a public service, this event was not covered at all by the mainstream media – so far as I can tell (i.e. a Google news search found nothing).   

Vancouver, BC

Activists dressed in polar bear suits delivered petitions collected by the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation (SPEC) and the Wilderness Committee to Premier Gordon Campbells office at 12:30 today. Over 10,000 signatures have been collected from citizens…

For immediate release Thursday, April 23, 2009

Polar Bears deliver 10,000 Anti-Gateway Petitions to Premiers office
Petitions Demand Funds Redirected to Transit

Vancouver, BC Activists dressed in polar bear suits delivered petitions collected by the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation (SPEC) and the Wilderness Committee to Premier Gordon Campbells office at 12:30 today. Over 10,000 signatures have been collected from citizens demanding investment in public transit and an end to the Port Mann megabridge project.

“Translink is currently exhausting its capital reserves just to keep existing service going,” said Karen Wristen, Executive Director of SPEC. “At this rate, they will be broke in two years. We simply cant afford both freeway expansion and transit development: we have to solve the transit crisis first.”

The polar bears highlight concerns about what activists are calling the “Gateway to global warming”. “It will be virtually impossible to reach BCs commitments to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs) if Gateway is allowed to proceed. Gateway is not just an irresponsible plan, its immoral,” said Ben West, the Wilderness Committees Healthy Communities Campaigner.

Environment Canada has stated that the Gateway Program will contribute to a “deterioration of air quality and an increase in GHG emissions”.

“If we want to create jobs to turn our economy around then the good news is that investing in transit creates 3 times as many jobs as the same sized investment in highway expenditure,” said Wristen. A recent report from UBC Professor Patrick Condon shows that the entire south Fraser region could be covered in convenient light rail transit for the same cost as the new Port Mann Bridge.

“Even if Gateway goes ahead, the Port Mann will be packed as a parking lot again within a few years due to the increased sprawl it will promote. The new mega-bridge will only make congestion worse, and citizens will be left holding the bill and paying the tolls for years to come. This is all preventable since there are very sensible solutions available,” said West.

The delivery of 10,000 signatures opposing Gateway in favour of better transit follows the Easter weekend Day of Action which saw activists take to Highway 1 overpasses from West Vancouver to Chilliwack demanding “Rail for the Valley” and “Better Transit, Not Freeways”. One banner from the day of action summed up the feelings of residents saying “Light Rail Cleaner, Safer, Cheaper”.

Globe and Mail

Cars and trucks will be crossing the new Port Mann Bridge a year earlier than promised, but transit riders may be out of luck without substantial new funding for bus services.

…

Ken Hardie, a spokesman for TransLink, said in an interview that the agency is facing an annual shortfall of $150-million based on current demand, and it will have evaporated its reserves within two years. To pay for the additional services that have been promised across the system, it would need to find an extra $300-million each year.

“We have been lavished with funding from the federal and provincial governments but it’s all for capital costs,” he said. The cost of operating the buses is the more significant part of the equation, he said.

This, of course, is not news. It is a reaction to the province’s announcement that the bridge will be “open a year early”. (It will also be slightly cheaper – interesting how once the P3 was cancelled it got both faster AND cheaper). Obviously Translink was not consulted – because they are still in the throes of trying to get people interested in their “long term plan” – when the real question is the short term cash crunch. Equally obviously it really does not matter what the agency wants to do – now or in the future – since it can only do what the province decides. And that is never based on regional priorities but short term political advantage. And both the Liberals and the NDP play that game.

And, once again, Kevin Falcon is out there lying in his teeth.

Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon vowed the promised rapid buses will be running on the new bridge. He said the province will pay part of the cost, but it is up to the regional governments to find their share as well.

“The day it opens, the rapid bus will be in place,” Mr. Falcon said in an interview. “The regions have to contribute. It’s never easy, but I think the public wants public transit.”

He said there has been no regular bus service on the existing Port Mann Bridge for two decades because of chronic congestion, and the increased transit services are a key part of the government’s climate action agenda. 

There has been no regular bus service since the previous one was cancelled due to “low ridership” after the Expo line was extended to Scott Road. And since Translink was told not to introduce a direct North Surrey to Coquitlam bus by Mr Falcon’s minions. “Chronic congestion” is not an excuse used for taking off bus service – and has never been used on any of the other very congested routes. What is done is that bus lanes are put in – just as the province is now doing on Highway #99. They have long been needed on the northbound approach to the Oak Street Bridge but are only now under construction as an afterthought, to deal with South Surrey and Delta express buses being diverted into the new Canada Line station at the casino. 

Increased transit service is also an afterthought. Since the main plank of this government’s transportation objective in this region is to increase traffic . Again, they lie about that, saying it will reduce ghg emissions as traffic will flow better on a wider freeway. But of course we all know – as do they – that has never happened anywhere. Last night I watched “New York: A Documentary Film” on KNOW. It was about the new bridges and freeways built by Robert Moses in the 1930s. Same justification as Falcon and Gordo still use – it would “solve congestion” and be a useful stimulus in times of economic depression. But soon after the Triborough Bridge opened, New York experience the worst traffic jam in its then history. Because new highways and bridges generate more trips. There is always more traffic when networks are expanded.  People use their cars more when offered new trip making opportunities – and those trips are usually longer. Congestion eventually settles back into a sort of equilibrium. As long as there are no major incidents, traffic reverts to about 10mph on average in nearly every city on earth. Enough people give up marginal trips, and enough people insist on driving to ensure a level of not too much misery every day. Until there is a collision. Or a truck overturns. Or the potholes need fixing. 

He is right, the people do want transit. They have been wanting it for years. And the provincial politicians have preferred to build roads and bridges. Because that helps their friends make money (Moses was very popular with the construction companies). And they have always told municipal politicians that their voters will have to made to pay more for transit and at the same time refused to sanction new revenue sources.   

Of course what is really needed is to cancel the Gateway altogether and spend the money on more buses – and trains for existing tracks – as well as putting in measures that reduce the amount of space devoted to cars in order to increase the people carrying capacity of the network we now have. With a few strategically placed queue jumper lanes and a few more “traffic meter” stop lights on the on-ramps, Highway #1 is quite adequate as it is. Because – as Gordon Campbell says – a rapid transit line can carry the same as ten lanes of freeway.  If it has enough trains or buses that is!

The mainstream media appear to have ignored this side of the day of action on Saturday. So I am publishing the entire Gatewaysucks release as is

SURREY — Activists South of the Fraser marked the riding office of provincial Highways Minister Kevin Falcon a “Global Warming Crime Scene” this morning, and piled sand used by Ministry contractors for highway construction in front of the door.

Residents from Surrey and Delta took part in the event at 108-17700 56 Ave, to send a message to government that Gateway freeway expansion is unacceptable given the climate crisis.

Saturday also saw citizens from West Vancouver to Chilliwack hoist banners on Highway 1 overpasses across the region in a coordinated Day of Action, with slogans such as “Stop the Gateway to Global Warming” and “Better Transit, Not Freeways”. Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in BC, and emissions will rise substantially if the Gateway Project is built.

“Kevin Falcon is a Climate Criminal, bulldozing us with freeways, and roasting the planet with greenhouse gases,” said Surrey resident Jim Shook as he attached large strips of yellow “Global Warming Crime Scene” tape across the door to Falcon’s office. “In solidarity with the region-wide Day of Action on Highway 1, we declare this a ‘Global Warming Crime Scene’ and return this freeway construction material to let him know that he should cancel the Gateway project immediately.”

The activists emptied buckets of highway construction sand in front of the office, taken from an area of recently bulldozed homes in Surrey’s Bridgeview neighbourhood that is being dumped with sand to prepare for possible construction of the South Fraser Perimeter Road.

According to Bridgeview resident Sonia Nazar, “Kevin Falcon has raped our community for his billion dollar freeway scheme, but our transit system is still starved for cash. Would he do this to his own neighbourhood?”

“Thousands of people from throughout Metro Vancouver have signed petitions against Gateway,” says Carmen Mills, spokesperson for GatewaySucks.org. “The people of the region are clearly opposed to this project, and we will make our voices heard. With this action, we’re saying it loud and clear: No Falcon Freeways!”

*****

I am fairly sure that I have written about this before, but one problem with a Premier who repeats lies is that someone has to point them out. Yesterday’s Straight interview with Gordon Campbell quotes him saying

The premier claimed the new bridge upgrade will provide taxpayers with “good value”, adding that it will “reestablish a transit line for the first time in 20 years”.

and

it’s expanding transit capacity for the first time in 20 years

There has been a long standing policy that says BC Transit/Translink won’t run buses that directly compete with rapid transit. I first heard about this when instructed to prepare a “bus integration plan” for the Millennium Line. It was recognised that local service was needed where stations were widely spaced or remote from communities or facilities. But it obviously makes sense, once you have spent billions on rail transit not to run a parallel service. This is also captured by notions such as “integrated transit service” and “seamless transfers”.

There is no “policy manual” where you can look this up – but the idea recurs throughout the Board decisions that endorsed bus route changes when new lines opened. Examples include the local #19 trolleybus that runs in the same general direction as the Expo line, or the community shuttles that work between Millennium Line stations. Some Burnaby bus routes also provide more direct service than going around the loop.

It is also a policy that recognises practicality. All direct Richmond to Vancouver services ended when the #98 B-Line opened – but were put back at the next sheet change (with different numbers!) due to “operational experience” (not enough capacity on the B-Line as Vancouver users took up all the space).

Buzzer August 29 1990

The “Buzzer” for August 24, 1990 announcing service changes stated that bus route #333 Guildford – Vancouver would be “discontinued due to low ridership”. It was replaced by increased peak hour service to Scott Road on the #330.

When SkyTrain got across the Fraser, bus routes in North Surrey were re-organised, and Scott Road was the main bus interchange as well as the main park and ride lot. I first visited Vancouver around that time and I recall that Scott Road was where one had to transfer to a bus if you wanted to get out to Langley. I suspect that BC Transit kept the #333 going after Scott Road Station opened in response to user group pressures (and maybe Mayoral pressure from the Transit Commission) but then found that people did not actually use it very much.

Kevin Falcon and his supporters have often said that buses could not be operated across the Port Mann because congestion would have made them too unreliable. First observation is that has never stopped any other bus service on other congested roads – and there are plenty of them. But secondly all that has been needed is a bus queue jumper lane on the hard shoulder northbound to avoid the queues that form due to traffic entering from 152nd Street. A “one car per green” traffic light would also help – and they are installed on the next inbound junctions downstream of the bridge. Translink did plan to introduce just such a route – to provide direct service between North Surrey and Coquitlam. The commute pattern has changed significantly in recent years and suburb to suburb is now much more significant than suburb to downtown.  (Translink’s latest plan repeats that observation up front). But they were very firmly told by the MoTH to do no such thing as it would weaken the case for Gateway!

And of course there has been transit expansion in the last twenty years – just not nearly enough in Surrey because attention was diverted elsewhere by Provincial policy decisions.

Matt Burrows interviews the Premier in the Straight this week. The things this man says “make one gasp and stretch one’s eyes”.

I am also pleased to say that I got in my rebuttal – at the top of the page no less.

Ministry of Transportation documents filed with the Environmental Assessment Office in 2006, and updated in 2007, predict that 176,000 tons of greenhouse gases will be added in the Lower Fraser Valley annually until 2021 as a result of Gateway.

“Well, you’ll have to define what you mean by the Gateway program,” Campbell responded,

No, actually we don’t. We can only use the definitions that the Government themselves have been using. Campbell now adds that Gateway is a transit programme as well. Which will be news to Tom Prendergast at Translink who is so strapped for operating funds that he is now saying that of we do not give him more taxes he will cut transit back to 1970 levels. That’s not any sort of plan – and it is certainly not one that will reduce emissions.

Campbell and Falcon like to talk about a “transit plan” but all it really is is a collection of old plans slightly warmed over that was hastily cobbled together in response to the growing pressure – especially south of the Fraser – for more transit not freeways. The claim is that after the freeway has been expanded then transit can be improved. Of course none of the $14bn this is estimated to cost is funded – and by the way it includes all of the money spent or committed to the Canada line. Both the federal government – and the cash strapped Translink – would have to equal the province’s contribution. Which just brings up back to poor old Mr Prendergast again.

The Gateway will not ease traffic congestion. First of all during the construction phase it will – of course – get much worse. Then when the shiny new facilities are opened there will be a brief period of whoopee. Which quickly evaporates as people start taking more and longer trips. “Induced traffic” has always followed new hiughway openings – and the more “supressed demand” there is now the quicker this effect is seen. The Alex Fraser Bridge is an example I quote because the people who live south of the Fraser are all familiar with it. The free flow of traffic period lasted months – not years – and even opening up the extra lanes on the bridge years before they were supposed to be needed did not help for long.

There are ways to reduce traffic. Indeed the traffic engineers’ toolbox is a concept that has also been around for years. The toughest sell to the driver is the idea that they should actually pay for the road space they use – in exactly the same way they pay for airline seats, or movies or any other perishable commodity. At peak periods, road space should cost the user more. It has a higher value at peak times. That way there is some effect possible of peak spreading – but mostly it provides a revenue source for alternatives – which are inherently more efficient people movers.

Congestion occurs on roads because cars are dreadfully inefficient at utilising road space. That is why there has long been a research porgramme for “intelligent highways” to try and get better at handling crush loads. A 3 metre wide strip – which might be a freeway lane or a bus lane or a railway track – can handle 2,000 vehicles per hour which at present average occupancy of 1.3 persons per car is 2,600 people per hour (pph). That kind of volume is well below what most existing transit (bus or train) provides. Most rapid transit systems work well at 10 to 15, 000 pph but 20 to 30,000 is not unusual. All kinds of fancy technology is proposed – most of which takes control of the vehicle away from its driver – but still at most doubles people carrying capacity. Yes, if you could persuade people to share their cars, you could equal that performance. All we have seen is a steady erosion of what is defined as a “high occupancy vehicle” – and many places in North America have given up altogether and allowed people willing to pay tolls into the HOV lane.

The point though really is that as a long term strategy to reduce greenhouse gases, highway expansion is self defeating. Because it locks the region into car dependency for the next thirty years or more. At the very time when redesigning the suburbs to reduce their carbon footprint is one of the most pressing needs to ensure that humanity can survive on this planet. Because know for certain that the one thing we will NOT see as a result of the Gateway is Transit Oriented Development. Because there will be no transit worth speaking of until all these highways are paid for.

Update – also read what my friend Eric has to say on the Livable Blog