Prime Minister Stephen Harper stopped in Surrey yesterday to officially launch construction on the South Fraser Perimeter Road -- a four-lane expressway that will link the Deltaport to the Trans-Canada Highway.
A group of protesters chanting "Don't want it! Don't need it!" gathered outside the Surrey docks where the press conference took place, reported Surrey Now.
The road itself is a billion dollar project (of which the federal government will contribute $365 million) and part of the much larger and controversial Gateway project.
In a press release, Gordon Campbell stated the road will streamline the movement of goods and ensure "we can tap into the trade opportunities with the Asia-Pacific."
Don Hunt, head of Delta's Sunbury neighborhood association, spoke to The Tyee before Harper's event.
He said there are "a dozen different reasons why the project shouldn't go ahead," one of which is the fact that it’s in an environmentally sensitive area -- home to Burns Bog and farmland.
Hunt also said the road and Deltaport expansion are not wanted, or needed. He thinks the "gateway" to Asia should be in Prince Rupert.
There, plans are underway to quadruple the size of the port facilities by 2014.
Barry Bartlett, corporate communications director for the Prince Rupert Port Authority, said container traffic has increased by 280 per cent in the first three-quarters of this year.
Bartlett wouldn't comment on whether he thought federal and provincial spending on Deltaport was a good idea.
He said that funding was "still in the works" for phase two of the Prince Rupert expansion, which is estimated to cost $650 million (about as much as the province will have to cough up for the South Fraser Perimeter Road alone.)
"We're getting containers from Yokohama, Japan to Chicago in about twelve days," said Bartlett.
"That's considered very, very, very good."
Bartlett says part of the reason is because Prince Rupert is geographically closer to Asia than Vancouver, but also because the port is able to quickly offload containers directly onto a train.
"The rail line is less than 200 meters from the ship," he said.
"We've eliminated the use of trucks."
The South Fraser Perimeter Road will extend 40 kilometers through Delta and Surrey along the Fraser River, linking the port with Highways 1, 99 and 91.
Colleen Kimmett reports regularly for the Hook.
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Frank
3 years ago
No trucks
Straight from the ship to the rails. Sounds like a darn good idea which no doubt is why Campbell would prefer to move the containers by truck through the GVRD.
Rod Smelser
3 years ago
20 PROTESTERS
Acccording to The Province, there were 20 protesters on hand led by Ben West.
I agree this road represents a threat to Burns Bog and that Prince Rupert is a logical place to locate some new container capacity. But there's going to be more containers coming to Vancouver as well, and Deltaport is one of the locations, even if it's not expanded. Some road capacity is needed, and if this route isn't optimal, then someone needs to design a good, cost-effective alternative.
badfreeway
3 years ago
50 protesters
there were actually about 50 protesters there in all. see video of the event here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKHUEr1mrvo
For a better world
3 years ago
The Prince Rupert Alternate
The biggest problem with the CNR Route from Prince Rupert is it is fraught with huge geological challenges. Accompanying the heavy north coast snows, there are many avalanche chutes that regularly damage the railway infrastructure along the Skeena River. It is most severe between Rupert and Terrace, but it extends all the way to Smithers.
There are similar challenges along the more southerly rail lines, but their frequency and impact is less severe.
I am sure CN has done considerable cost/benefit analyses to address some of these issues. The costs to fully mitigate these long-term problems are huge, even with the generous assistance of public funding.
Lula
3 years ago
Gateway project
Expansion of Deltaport, building of a truck highway and more rail lines in Delta is just plain wrong for so many reasons, some of which are listed above.
To answer Rod Smelser, a different road was proposed by two Delta engineers. It was better for the Agricultural land, Burns Bog, and didn't go close to neighbourhoods and schools. However no one in the Province listened or even met to look at the proposal. This is par for the course with all Delta projects including the transmission lines.
It is wrong because it will destroy the Fraser estuary environment including habitat for killer whales,millions of birds and salmon fry.
it is wrong because the increased truck and train traffic will bring air pollution to Delta, greater Vancouver and as far away as Hope. How does this fit in with decreasing our carbon footprint?
in the declining economic times the port expansion and roads will become dinosaurs.
Prince Rupert is better as it is also a natural port.
NicS
3 years ago
DeltaPort Already Outdated-Campbell Liberals Bankrupt
It is common knowledge in transportation circles that shipping costs have increased so much in the last 6 years, that west coast ports are becoming net exporters now, less and less importing is happening. So much so that the US steel industry was dying a slow death, due to imports from Chinese steel mills, as little as 3 years ago. Now it is no longer profitable to ship scrap steel from North American ports to China and US steel mills were actually making a comeback until the Oct. financial meltdown.
Furthermore, DeltaPort has never been able to give any evidence that their figures for increased shipping traffic are at all valid. Its been said that the new Vancouver Port Authority is simply trying to justify their existence and that this quasi-governmental organization is out of touch with the realities of their own industry.
Lets not forget that the company running DeltaPort was a Chinese Co. and that it was in their best interests to promote bigger and better ports to facilitate the cheap handling of freight containers and bulk goods. This promotion of more port facilities is not unique to Vancouver, it runs the length of the west coast from San Diego to Prince Rupert, and the market has gone flat.
Incidentally, after the approval for the first phase of DeltaPort expanision was confirmed, the Ontario Teachers Pension Fund purchased from the Chinese Co. the Company running DeltaPort.
And now we have another Ponzi scheme P3 project (scroll down) underway in the form of the South Fraser Perimeter Road (SFPR) for an already dead in the water port project.
Why, in these times of financial uncertainty and collapsing credit markets, would Gordon Campbell's Liberals be pushing thru all these more than questionable P3 projects?
snert
3 years ago
NIMBYism
Isn't it wonderful. Wahhhhhh!
Rod Smelser
3 years ago
WOULD A DIFFERENT ROUTE SATISFY YOU, LULA?
"To answer Rod Smelser, a different road was proposed by two Delta engineers. It was better for the Agricultural land, Burns Bog, and didn't go close to neighbourhoods and schools. However no one in the Province listened or even met to look at the proposal. This is par for the course with all Delta projects including the transmission lines.
It is wrong because it will destroy the Fraser estuary environment including habitat for killer whales,millions of birds and salmon fry.
it is wrong because the increased truck and train traffic will bring air pollution to Delta, greater Vancouver and as far away as Hope. How does this fit in with decreasing our carbon footprint?"
If that alternate route were chosen, how many of your objections listed above would be obviated? It seems that the latter points on air pollution and GHGs would not be, but the impacts the Bog and farmland would be reduced. The impacts on fisheries and whale habitat would be more dependent on expansion of Deltaport itself than of the road or rail links.
People need to remember that the much ballyhooed LRSP included the SFPR in roughly the location now being constructed. So much for the supposed wisdom of the LRSP, and of the Transport 2021 report that formed its foundation in road and transit matters.
Romeogolf
3 years ago
More Containers Through Vancouver?
Rod Smelser, on what do you base your assertion that more containers are coming through Vancouver?
The assumptions used in the Gateway business case are simplistic extrapolations from when it was written years ago and had no consideration of climate change, peak oil, increasing Chinese labour costs, the opening of the Northwest Passage (http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2008/11/28/nwest-vessel.html), and competition from an upgraded Panama Canal (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/latinamerica/la-fi-ports28-2008nov28,0,6335258.story?track=rss). The assumptions have not been revised, which is, at the least, gross incompetence.
As a side note, implying that the LRSP is all-seeing and all-knowing is disingenuous. The LRSP was written in 1999. It hardly anticipated the convergence of climate change and peak oil. One thing it did do very well, though, for its time, is try to strike a balance between growth, our need for agricultural land, and the environment. That principle is still relevant today. But in a different context, the details of the plan must be revised.
Rod Smelser
3 years ago
PEAK OIL? PLEASE
Romeo, with crude trading at under $40 a barrell, surely you must realize that the entire peak oil "theory" is just popular razzmatazz, a psuedo-theory used by freelance "intellectuals" to sell books and videos and tickets to speaking engagements. And surely you must also realize that the circulation of this material has, till about six months ago, been very beneficial to oil cartels and futures traders seeking to soak the public.
And I am just thinking out loud here, but Romeo, ... do you think it's possible that some of those oil interests may have been secretly promoting and sponsoring the circulation of peak oil theories? Just a thought.
I haven't reviewed in detail the projections for increased container traffic from China but I do know they are taken seriously up and down the Pacific Coast by all the ports. That's one reason that private capital has been willing to put money into expanding the Prince Rupert Port as well as port capacity in Vancouver, and in American west coast ports as well.
On the LRSP I think you have misunderstood me. I think the LRSP was an extemely poor document, a purely political document (a brightly coloured brochure, really), not a serious plan. I think it was motivated by a desire among local politicos to prefer the economic interests of property owners and employers over those of housing consumers and employees, and it was furthermore designed to minimize the local government tax burden in relation to any and all transportation investments so as to avoid any nasty embarassments for those same politicos at election time.
Yet many people revere this plan in glowing terms, as you do, and some even refer to it as a kind of sacred text. They denounce the Port Mann-Highway 1 project invoking the fact that it wasn't identified as a priority in the LRSP, as if its exclusion from that rather silly document amounts to a serious indictment of the project's worth. But when that same plan includes the SFPR, they don't take its recommendation seriously. I agree they shouldn't. But neither should they take its exclusion of Port Mann-Hwy 1 seriously, either. A bit of consistency, please.
PeteL
3 years ago
Put up or shush up
I'm fairly worn out by the tiresome quotes coming from Delta. If you want to go on and on about how the municipality is being treated by the Liberals and Conservatives, then don't vote these buggers in.
I mean it, this May turf every Liberal member from Delta then you'll see things change. Until you get that organized then stop this non-sense about Prince Rupert all the time.
Prince Rupert has huge geography challenges, the primary one being flat land on which to place and expanded port and the impossibly deep water to drop pilings.
I'm against the South Fraser Perimeter Road as much as anybody, but the protests coming out of Delta are completely hollow and unrealistic.
Anyway Campbell will just bribe you with something, just like the powerlines, and you will all roll over and will have wasted everyone else's time and sympathy.
Just sayin'.
Romeogolf
3 years ago
Peak Oil? Thank You!
Rod, saying peak oil is bogus because oil is under $40 bbl is like saying global warming is a fraud because of the snowstorms we had. The Oil Drum has a good piece explaining what's going on at http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4870.
Nevertheless, do you actually believe there are limitless quantities of oil in the ground? That we'll never run out? The International Energy Agency's chief economist doesn't think so: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/dec/15/oil-peak-energy-iea. Looking at their projected timeline for the ultimate decline of conventional oil, that doesn't leave a lot of time to change our infrastructure. Yet, our vaunted leaders want to spend billions on even more oil-dependent infrastructure.
As for container traffic projections from China. It won't make a difference to the ports here if it happens to double and the majority of it ends up going through the Panama Canal and the Northwest Passage. LA and Long Beach, at least, are very concerned about competition with Panama. Private capital has put a hold on a number of port expansions. And considering the economic mess we're in right now, one must seriously question their judgment.
As for your characterization of the LRSP, your resort to hyperbole regarding the intent of the authors and my view of the document indicate a significant bias on your part. Any document addressing the LRSP's subject matter is political, no matter what the prescription offered; it is inherently so.
As I said above, the principle of trying to strike a balance between growth, our need for agricultural land, and the environment is still relevant. In a different context, as we find ourselves in today, the details of the plan must be revised.