Delta wants federal cash for highways

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DELTA (NEWS1130) – The Corporation of Delta says there are a number of prudent upgrades the province will not pay for, so it’s going to ask Ottawa for the money. Mayor Lois Jackson will ask for federal cash to improve highways during a visit east in October.

First on the wish list is a revamp of the Massey Tunnel, says Chief Administrative Officer George Harvie.

“It’s just a huge bottleneck,” he points out.
    
Last week News1130 learned there are no upgrades planned. Questions were raised after a major container truck accident caused hours of delays.

Harvie worries about what could happen if the aging four-lane tunnel isn’t improved.

“Any idea of another advancement in so far as expansion of Deltaport is just going to bring more containers to an area that’s already choked with traffic,” he claims. “The [South Fraser Perimeter Road] is going to be of great assistance but it’s that north-south flow that we really need help with.”

It’s not the first time Delta has asked directly for federal help.  

“We were very successful in having infrastructure funding for overpasses and improvements throughout Delta the last two years,” he says. “It’s always good to keep that communication going.  We still have problems with the north-south flow of goods through Delta, into Richmond, Vancouver, et cetera.”

Delta also wants the feds to give the province more cash for the South Fraser Perimeter Road.
It is expected to be complete in 2013 but the province axed plans for interchanges on the route as costs inflated. The highway will have traffic lights instead of interchanges.

Harvie says it should be built properly from the get-go.

“It’s a far better use of our tax dollars,” he argues. “They’ve already bought the properties for the interchanges. They’ve already done their pre-loading. So it makes much more economic sense to do it right at the beginning as opposed to closing and having additional construction five or six years from now.”

He says it’s an eerie reminder of when the Alex Fraser Bridge and Highway 91 were built with traffic signals in the late 1980s.

Delta has also written to the province and ICBC about its concerns surrounding at-grade intersections on an 80 km/h highway.  The insurance corporation has implied interchanges are safer.

The only freeway with a traffic signal

Meanwhile the only freeway in the Lower Mainland that still has a traffic signal will continue to operate as is. The province says there’s no need to replace the intersection at Highway 91 and 72nd Avenue.

An interchange was planned there under the 2005 Border Infrastructure Program but all that cash went to improvements in the Queensborough area instead. In 2009 the province had said it couldn’t reach a design agreement with Delta, not wanting to include a link from 72nd to southbound Highway 91.  Harvie worries that without that link, drivers will opt to use local streets.

The response now is different. The transportation ministry tells News1130 via email this section of highway has a collision rate much lower than the provincial average for similar urban four-lane highways with more than 20,000 vehicles per day. Projections show traffic volumes are on the rise.

It admits, “some peak hour congestion does occur, but this is not unusual on an urban highway network; in this location the delays here are similar to other highways in the Lower Mainland.”

Harvie disagrees. He says the only light on the 21-kilometre freeway is a cause of major back ups.

“And I don’t know what the hesitation is,” he adds. “The property is available. The province owns the proper road right-of-ways in the area.”

Kim Seale in the News1130 Air Patrol flies over congestion in the area all the time…

“That light in Delta should never have been put there,” she says. “Back in ’86 when they built the Alex Fraser Bridge they should have dealt with that then.  Now they’re looking at 10 times the cost to get that thing upgraded and get rid of the traffic light.  Huge delays there morning and afternoon.”

Harvie hopes the feds will step in with some cash to replace the intersection with a fly-over.

Last week the Nelson Road interchange opened on Highway 91’s Richmond side. At a news conference, representatives for the provincial and federal governments touted it as a way to reduce congestion and improve truck traffic in Metro Vancouver while trucks sat idling at the intersection with 72nd Avenue just minutes down the road.

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