Bridge tolling should be an election issue
Photo copyright nobridgetollsinbc.com
A review of bridge tolling policy won’t happen until after
the next election.
The decision by Transportation Minister Todd Stone is
clearly in the interests of the current BC Liberal government, but it may not
be in the interest of bridge users. The best time to apply pressure to any
government is just before an election - not afterwards.
Stone said last month there is no rush to do such a review.
The province has decided it is going ahead with the Deas Island bridge which
will replace the Massey Tunnel, and it will be tolled.
“If they (the Mayors’ Council) move forward with a tolled bridge to
replace the Pattullo, that would leave the Alex Fraser as the only non-tolled
option, and that would not be workable for the region," Stone said. "That
being said, we also know the George Massey construction period is going to take
another four and a half years. Pattullo, assuming they make a decision on that,
would take four or five years. So there's lots of time to have this discussion
broadly across the region.”
The review process has dragged on for far too long already. The
province’s decision to have drivers who use the new Port Mann Bridge pay for
much of the $3.3 billion cost of the entire Highway 1 improvement project,
while allowing drivers who get on the highway in Coquitlam and west to entirely
escape paying tolls, set a high mark for inequity.
Other provincial highway projects in the region do not have tolls.
The new Pitt River Bridge between Port Coquitlam and Maple Ridge is free. So is
the Sea-to-Sky Highway, which had a major rebuild in time for the 2010 Winter
Olympics.
Highway 17, the perimeter road between Surrey and Delta’s port, is
also a free highway with no tolls.
The effect of placing tolls on the Port Mann and the Golden Ears (a
bridge owned by TransLink) has been twofold. It has moved traffic to free
bridges, most notably the Pattullo and Alex Fraser, and caused much more
congestion than would otherwise be the case.
The second effect has been to hit drivers who use the toll bridges
regularly, most notably residents of Surrey, Langley, Maple Ridge and
Abbotsford, (and to a lesser degree Mission and Chilliwack) with higher taxes
in the form of bridge tolls.
Interestingly enough, most of the ridings in those six communities
are held by BC Liberal MLAs. There are currently 17 MLAs representing those
communities in the provincial legislature, and two more from Delta, which is
already impacted by congestion on the Alex Fraser and will be in exactly the
same boat when the new Deas Island bridge opens.
Of those 19 MLAs, only three are New Democrats. One is an
independent (Vicki Huntington in Delta South, who is not running again), and the
other 15 are BC Liberals.
The BC Liberals badly need to keep a strong majority in this region
in order to retain power. Yet they have done very little to show that they
understand the concerns of those who pay tolls on a regular basis.
The provincial election is less than two months away. People
who are concerned about the unfair tolling policy, and the likelihood that it
will continue for another four or five years (if Stone’s words are accurate),
need to apply considerable pressure to the candidates in their ridings. They
need to see where the candidates from different parties stand, and they need to
let them know this is an election issue.
At least one candidate in Surrey is campaigning primarily
to remove bridge tolls. Gary Hee is running as an independent in the new
Surrey South riding against incumbent Surrey-Cloverdale MLA Stephanie
Cadieux, who has chosen to run in the new riding.
Hee has set up a website - nobridgetollsinbc.com - and has already put up a number of signs in the sprawling riding, even though the campaign has yet to officially begin.
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