Re: “New Port Mann Bridge won’t solve gridlock,” Letters, The Leader, Nov. 27.
For others who may also have missed what the Stop Gateway movement and UBC transportation expert Stephen Rees have pointed out, every other highway expansion project in North America has filled up within a couple of years.
Seattle’s own mega-billion version of Gateway filled up in less than two years.
Stop Gateway pointed out that the best long-term option was to pour the large majority of TransLink funding into expansion of public transit – coaxing more and more of those drivers who continue to choose to drive out of their cozy private vehicles.
Stop Gateway pointed out that 75 per cent of those using the Port Mann do so in single occupancy vehicles (SOVs).
Tolling SOVs heavily, with car-poolers being given reduced rates based on occupancy, would have reduced overall Port Mann traffic by at least half.
By the way, Gateway’s South Fraser Perimeter Road – that sucked up extremely valuable farmland as well as banging away once again at our precious Burns Bog – made no sense either.
Opponents pointed out that transport by barge from Delta Port along the Fraser River to Port Kells warehouses up river would have kept hundreds of semi-trailers an hour from going back and forth along that route, reflecting what most big cities like Paris and London have opted for.
Most large cities in Europe also restrict tractor-trailer deliveries to off-peak overnight hours – business warehousing must remain open to accept that cargo.
Gateway was a huge misallocation of taxes.
All in all, letter writer Lyslie Koch is most probably bang on in her hindsight prediction.
Lance Read
Surrey