South Fraser Perimeter Road/Highway 17 Extension | Completed

[officedweller]

Odd question, but if there's a crash and a fuel spill and fire, would the foam blocks melt?

[Vancouver_Highrise]

Yeah they replaced all the old foam blocks on the 200th overpass. I doubt the foam would start on fire because they are covered in a layer of gravel and some type of mulch then paved over.

[Metro-One]

Sadly no new ones so far. there are alignments available but those are outdated (seeing as they still display the old two bridge design, instead of the new single mega bridge).

[deasine]

Posting it twice won't make getting an answer any faster. Other than the overhead blueprints, there isn't anything, not to mention those plans are old.

[jlousa]

Fried chicken eater/NW2K rebanned.

[metroXpress]

[moved]

[deasine]

Wrong thread Allen.

[officedweller]

Pano pic of the Pitt Rver Bridge from the webcam August 6th, 2009:

[metroXpress]

Highway controversy (Part One in a Leader special series)


By Black Press - Surrey North Delta Leader

Published: August 05, 2009 6:00 AM

0 Comments

It was a line drawn by transportation planners on a map about four decades ago.

Today, it is a subject of simmering controversy as the physical impact on land set aside for construction of the South Fraser Perimeter Road begins to be apparent as preloading begins.

It’s a matter new Delta-South independent MLA is challenging, saying the truck route designed to lessen the load on local roads and accommodate an expected dramatic rise in container truck traffic in the coming years through Deltaport is being built in the wrong place and will consume far too much productive farmland.

On the other side of the subject is the local business community which says the $1-billion asphalt artery – funded by the provincial and federal governments – is essential in moving the economy forward.

Wrong place, wrong route?

Huntington, who served as a Delta councillor for 15 years, says she doesn’t feel residents have a clear understanding of what is in store when it comes to how much impact the new highway’s interchanges and overpasses will have on the landscape as it gobbles up acres of farmland.

The Gateway Program the quasi-government body overseeing the project – stipulates that total land required for construction is 222 acres.

Huntington puts the number much higher, around 1,000 acres once other aspects – such as land adjacent to the interchanges and impact on sectioning off farmland – is taken into account.

But her overriding concern is that the project is ill-considered when there are alternative routes she considers more viable and would have less impact on farmland.

“Obviously something needs to be done to accommodate the increased truck traffic and the expansion of the port,” Huntington says. “But for most of us, however, it’s that it’s (South Fraser Perimeter Road planning) not being done properly.”

Huntington contends the new highway, which when completed will link Deltaport with Highway 1, is being constructed with “maximum impact” on the communities it will pass through.

“There are alternatives that can be used,” she says, “We can upgrade River Road and take the traffic into Tilbury, the municipality is building River Way.”

Too late to change directions?

But is it too late to alter the course already set now work to prepare the soil for the road bed is being undertaken in South Delta?

Huntington says no.

“Yes, they started some pre-load,” she says. “But it’s never too late to do the right thing. And for heaven’s sake, someone in this provincial government should take another look at the route they have chosen, re-design it before they have too gone far and do the right thing for once in South Delta.”

Huntington likened the situation to the upgrading of overhead power lines through portions of residential Tsawwassen when the public was clamouring for underground alternatives and different routes.

Whatever transpires, Huntington says the time is now for the public to raise their concerns.

“As long as the public takes an interest in this and recognizes there is still time to see change, even though the province has gone a long way down the road, if there is time to change it and do the right thing, hopefully somebody in this government will now listen to us. Don’t make the same mistakes they did with the power lines.

“That’s exactly what’s starting to happen here.”

Farmers’ concerns

Delta Farmers’ Institute administrator Robert Butler is doing what he can for farmers to make the best of the project he’d rather not see take place.

“If we had our druthers we’d sooner see this thing disappear off the map. We’ve made a decision to see what we could get,” he says.

The 90 hectares of land within the Agricultural Land Reserve to be used for the construction of the highway will impact 30 farming properties.

“It’s a lot of land, and we understand that,” says Butler. “But we understood clearly that the highway was going to go through from day one, and the issue was, well, if we simply say no all the time what are we going to get? Well, nothing.”

The lines of communication between the farmers’ institute and the province have been open since 2004.

“Recognizing that it will require some agricultural land, some of which is currently farmed, we’ve committed to a $28-million agricultural enhancement strategy,” says B.C. Gateway director of planning and community relations Pam Ryan.

The main aspect of the mitigation package is an irrigation and drainage system which Ryan says will service 15,000 acres of Delta farmland including an additional 5,000 acres currently without access.

“If it’s designed properly it will increase the capacity of fresh water available to farmers,” says Butler.

The current gravity-flow irrigation system only allows farmers to access fresh water at high tide – an improved irrigation system would enable farmers to choose when they want to water their fields.

Improved access for farming vehicles via overpasses and service roads are next on the Delta Farmers Institute’s list, such as an extension of Burns Drive north of Highway 99 connecting 88 Street to 72 Street.

“There were a lot of previous highway initiatives that had come through here such as Highway 17, Highway 99, where there was absolutely no mitigation for farmers. We’ve tried to correct some of the things not done right the first time,” says Butler.

Other minor requests such as vehicle-activated lights so farm vehicles can more easily turn on to Ladner Trunk Road have not been granted, but Butler says negotiations between the farmers and the province are ongoing while detailed design planning continues.

“We’re not finished pressing government but we’re focussing mostly on the bigger ones,” he says. “Some of these others cost Delta long-term maintenance costs, and they might not be amenable to them.”

So far, Butler is aware of only one farmer who will be put out of business as a result of the highway, a small cranberry producer who leases municipal land for his farm in North Delta.

Highway of benefits?

On another side of the issue, the local business community sees the potential benefits the new highway will bring.

Greg Muirhead, president of the Delta Chamber of Commerce, says the new highway has to be a win-win situation for both local business and residents.

“When you look at port expansion, we need the connection,” Muirhead says. “It’s going to get a lot of truck traffic out of Ladner.”

What’s the alternative?

“If you think that we’re not going to be growing and more traffic is not going to be coming through, it’s like sticking your head in the sand,” Muirhead adds. “We should be happy that it’s here and take advantage of it.”

Henri Legal, senior director of operations for Maersk Distribution in Delta which handles a good portion of container traffic through Deltaport, says truck container growth is inevitable, but that does not give the green light to the industry to run roughshod over local concerns.

Legal says he praises the work done by opposition groups to keep Gateway officials aware of issues surrounding the community and environment.

“All the power to them, because they force us to pay attention to those concerns. But I honestly think it’s (SFPR) in the right place.

“They (Gateway) did the right thing, a lot of good research of where the best route should be. It certainly takes away traffic from areas that need relief right now,” Legal says.

Common ground

In theory, Huntington agrees.

“Yes, we need to move the trucks through Delta efficiently and effectively. And yes we need to get them into Tilbury, but there are ways to do that and not gobble up as much land.

“Yes, you can build this road. Yes, we know we need it. Yes, there is an alternative route that would do far less damage to Delta.”

- by Philip Raphael and Kristine Thiessen

Look for part two in this series on the South Fraser Perimeter Road in the Aug. 12 edition of The Surrey-North Delta Leader. We will examine why some people in the community think it’s not too late to change plans, and why the province says alternative routes are not viable.

http://www.bclocalnews.com/surrey_area/surreyleader/news/52470992.html

[metroXpress]

Moving house—North Delta man battles the South Fraser Perimeter Road


House proud— North Delta’s Alex Trytko has lived in his home since 1978 and is now having to move it 40 feet to save it from the bulldozers as construction of the South Fraser Perimeter Road begins.



By Dan Ferguson - South Delta Leader

Published: August 06, 2009 2:00 PM
Updated: August 06, 2009 2:35 PM

0 Comments

This story is the third in a series examining the impacts of the South Fraser Perimeter Road. Past stories are available in the South Delta Leader’s July 3 and 17 editions.

Lines of blue and white plastic tape flutter near Alex Trytko’s North Delta home.

The survey stakes mark where the South Fraser Perimeter Road will gobble up his back yard.

The stakes cut through his house, slashing across a corner of the basement.

Unlike South Delta, where the four-lane South Fraser Perimeter Road (SFPR) navigates through mostly rural and industrial properties, in North Delta the multi-billion dollar project runs through residential neighbourhoods like the Norum Place cul-de-sac that Trytko has called home for more than 30 years.

Dozens of North Delta houses are being demolished, bought out by the Gateway project to make room for the road right-of-way.

In Trytko’s case, the road will run along the bottom of the ravine his back yard overlooks, but the road builders still want his property to anchor a retaining wall.

“They wanted to buy me out and have me move away,” the 78-year-old Trytko says, patting an exterior stone wall of the sleek two-storey house that perches high on a hill above the Fraser River.

“I want to stay here and stay in this house.”

He laid every one of those stones himself, securing them with concrete mortar and chicken wire.

He designed the elegant, still modern-looking house and built it with his own hands. Picked out teak and walnut panelling from the plywood mill where he worked as a supervisor and installed it using glue instead of nails so the wood surface would not be marred by holes. He also built furniture as good as anything seen in a high-style showroom. Anything to do with wood, he handled.

Other tradesmen dealt with the electrical, plumbing and drywall. It took him eight months to complete his 3,600 square-foot dream house in 1978.

A few years after Trytko and his wife moved into the house, there was talk about a building a freeway along the river.

It would have been called Riverway, a four-lane road that would connect to Annacis Island.

A newspaper story at the time ran a photo of Trytko leaning on the spacious second floor balcony that runs across the entire north side of his house.

Back then he told the reporter that he was willing to give up some of his property to Riverway, so long as he could keep his house.

The freeway never proceeded, but Trytko was sure there would be another proposal one day.

“I never knew when I was going to have to go” he says.

By the time the Gateway Program came knocking, Trytko had retired and his wife had passed away.

But he was no more prepared to give up his home than he was three decades earlier.

“I have no wife. I have no girlfriend. This is all I got,” he says.

He recently redid the home’s roof, cutting cedar shakes by hand using a heavy metal and plastic mallet of his own design to split the raw logs using a scythe-like L-shaped splitter.

He made his own hammer because the wooden mallets tend to wear out too soon and don’t have enough weight to split a log with one blow.

He is used to doing things for himself.

His mother died when he was 11. His father passed when he was 15.

Growing up like that makes a man self-reliant and stubborn in the best sense of the word.

So no one, not his well-meaning children and certainly not the negotiators for a government sponsored freeway project, could talk Alex Trytko into giving up his house.

After a lot of discussion, a compromise of sorts was reached.

Gateway will buy the north end of his lot, and Trytko will use the money to move his house 40 feet back, just beyond the line of survey stakes.

The move alone will cost more than $300,000, not counting the price of building a new basement and redoing the landscaping.

Trytko doesn’t have the heart to tear out the panelling in the downstairs basement, so a friend will do it for him.

He will not be able to keep the garage addition he built using 6x6 posts and 4x14 beams of Douglas Fir, so his son who lives in Saskatoon is coming out to help dismantle it and move it to his home.

When all the dust has settled, Trytko will have slightly less than half the lot he used to.

But he will still be able to walk out onto his balcony and watch the river.

On a clear day, he can see the mountains on Vancouver Island.

He enjoys watching cargo ships from around the world moving up and down the Fraser, and evenings when the cityscapes of Burnaby and New Westminster glow in the dark.

“At night, this is all lights” he says.

He loves it.

[email protected]

http://www.bclocalnews.com/richmond_southdelta/southdeltaleader/community/52608722.html

[GeeCee]

Sad to be sure, but it is the price of progress.

[racc]

Originally Posted by GeeCee

Sad to be sure, but it is the price of progress.

How is building a road to a port when world trade is plummeting progress? How is building a road period progress when oil prices are at $70 a barrel during a great recession and will skyrocket after the recession is over? How is building a road progress when the government is unable to fund transit?

Maybe this would have been progress in the fifties but the world has moved on.

[Canadian Mind]

Originally Posted by racc

How is building a road to a port when world trade is plummeting progress? How is building a road period progress when oil prices are at $70 a barrel during a great recession and will skyrocket after the recession is over? How is building a road progress when the government is unable to fund transit?

Maybe this would have been progress in the fifties but the world has moved on.

Makes sence to build in a reccession, material and labour is cheaper, and you keep your workforce employed. Trade will rise again.

I wont comment about the house, I'm on the fence regarding that story.

As for farmland, in the end I don't see how a highway will cause a problem. If anything it'll act like another temp. — should the river flood or the ocean swell during a storm. Highways all over the province of Alberta and it doesn't seem to effect the farming at all.

[Stingray2004]

Originally Posted by racc

How is building a road to a port when world trade is plummeting progress? How is building a road period progress when oil prices are at $70 a barrel during a great recession and will skyrocket after the recession is over? How is building a road progress when the government is unable to fund transit?

Maybe this would have been progress in the fifties but the world has moved on.

Are you situate in the proximity of downtown Vancouver?

Hwy 17 has seen an incredible surge in container trucking over the past decade plus and Deltaport is/will further become a major contributor to the Metro Vancouver economy.

Transit is not part of that equation. You do understand the importance of economic growth and the revenues generated therefrom to government to fund transit?

BTW, roughly 100 homes were expropriated for the Cassiar Connector in order to complete the free-flow of Hwy 1 in Vancouver. Would you have been against that?

Would you have been against BC Hydro's massive dam expansion during the '60's, '70's and '80's along the Peace and Columbia Rivers due to the enormous environmental impacts of same?

Food for thought.

[GeeCee]

Originally Posted by racc

How is building a road to a port when world trade is plummeting progress? How is building a road period progress when oil prices are at $70 a barrel during a great recession and will skyrocket after the recession is over? How is building a road progress when the government is unable to fund transit?

Maybe this would have been progress in the fifties but the world has moved on.

Typical — from a Critical Mass attendee. Cars and trucks aren't going anywhere any time soon..

[Metro-One]

hehe, the funny thing is cars and trucks already have been part of civilization for thousands of years, did the Romans not built great roads during their years? Horse buggies and wagons all used roads in the past, then the technology changed and we got modern cars and trucks and mass production, but guess what, these new inventions still used the same roads! The same will happen again, when there is little oil left and the cost is far to high new technologies will replace our current form of cars and trucks, but there still will be cars and trucks that will need to use roads! In fact after looking at the natural progression of vehicles throughout human history these new cars and trucks will probably continue to become faster and stronger than our current form. I wonder if RCC has ever seen the vast amount of industrial traffic in Delta. Not everything can be shipped by train, and international trade will always continue (in fact closing your borders to trade during a recession is the worst thing a nation can do!)

[Millennium2002]

GeeCee, your post is very rude. Unlike people who attended Critical Mass, we people are not protesters who want to disrupt traffic or make people angry to get the point across. I myself do not like the project. Does not liking the Gateway Project make me a Critical Mass participant? Heck, I didn't even go to that ill-advised event.

You should also know by know that there is not just one person who is opposed to this. There are many in fact. The mayors of Vancouver and Burnaby are good examples. They may seem quiet right now but that's because the government has literally shoved the project through regardless of what others think of it. Many issues still remain regarding the increased potential for urban sprawl that will destroy farmland and put houses in its place as well as the potential for that new traffic to clog up the roads in the future. Also, farmland is no dying industry here. It still makes up a good part of the economy. To destroy acres of it would be suicide in the event that we need to use it more (e.g. in the immediate aftermath of a crippling earthquake).

I know that the port plays a critical role in the economy. Or else I wouldn't see the container port in Delta. But currently there is no assurance given that municipalities along the route will not expand housing, or that the highway will not be widened further. I actually think portions of the South Delta route should have designated truck lanes and truck-only sections as a reminder of what traffic the route was intended for. (Something similar should happen with the Gateway Project too... two HOV lanes each direction).

[SFUVancouver]

I have to agree; I do not like that when racc raised worthwhile points in the course of this online discussion board the response was name calling. That is juvenile. Also what does Critical Mass have to do with the South Fraser Perimeter Road? What is wrong with asserting a position that is counter to your own? Especially when the main points that were raised, which are that labour and materials are cheaper in a recession, equally apply to the building of rapid transit lines.

Going back the highly democratic question of what alternative uses for the SFPR money might be, what if I were to rhetorically ask why are we in a hurry to build the SFPR when we have an enormous backlog of seismic upgrades to be performed on our children’s elementary schools? Should we not keep our kids safe before we build a new highway? Of course I cannot imagine anyone would publicly come out in favour of crushed children but money talks and we can see where it is being spent.

Recently the road, shipping, industry, and trucking lobbies have successfully garnered commitments for substantial public investment in new highway infrastructure. They have won this round despite the splintering of many of the planks in their platform. However not long ago the transit, environment, airport, business, and tourism lobbies won a huge victory by successfully garnering substantial public and private investment in new transit infrastructure, which, don’t forget, is opening in ten days.

[Stingray2004]

Originally Posted by allan_kuan

You should also know by know that there is not just one person who is opposed to this. There are many in fact. The mayors of Vancouver and Burnaby are good examples. They may seem quiet right now but that's because the government has literally shoved the project through regardless of what others think of it.

Are you another one of those folk who lives in close proximity to downtown Vancouver?

The City of Vancouver proper comprises around 27% of Metro Vancouver's population. I recall during the early 1980's when then Mayor Mike Harcourt butted his nose into the region's affairs by opposing the Alex Fraser Bridge and Hwy 91. Guess what mess the region would have been in with that uninformed approach back then?

At least Harcourt has now come around and supports the Gateway Program. From goat trails to proper highway infrastructure that is.

BTW, who cares what the mayors of Vancouver and Burnaby think about the rest of Metro Vancouver??? They don't even live there.

What the citizens of Burnaby think is an entirely different matter, however. A couple of years ago, during September, 2007, NRG Research Group published a public opinion poll inclusive of the following question:

Based upon what you now know about the project to expand Highway 1 from Vancouver to Langley, improve on and off ramps and twin the Port Mann Bridge would you say that you support or oppose it?

Total Support: 72%
Total Oppose: 21%

http://www.getmovingbc.com/press_release/NRG_Report_September_2007.pdf

Are you now going to quibble with public opinion in neighbouring Burnaby?

Many issues still remain regarding the increased potential for urban sprawl that will destroy farmland and put houses in its place as well as the potential for that new traffic to clog up the roads in the future. Also, farmland is no dying industry here. It still makes up a good part of the economy. To destroy acres of it would be suicide in the event that we need to use it more (e.g. in the immediate aftermath of a crippling earthquake).

That's all nice and fine but I suppose that you would have been in the forefront in blocking the construction of Hwy 99 to the US border as well as Hwy 17 to the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal circa 1960?

I actually think portions of the South Delta route should have designated truck lanes and truck-only sections as a reminder of what traffic the route was intended for. (Something similar should happen with the Gateway Project too... two HOV lanes each direction).

Cool, but I would suggest that you first petition Vancouver City council to demolish all of the single-family housing within the City of Vancouver for high-density housing in order to make way for the next million to populate Metro Vancouver.

While you are at it, you might as well petition the City of Vancouver to make all of their arterials and bridges HOV-only lanes and once that social experiment comes into play you can tell the remainder of us 74% living out here in the rest of Metro Vancouver how that makes out.

But please, leave your social engineering within the City of Vancouver, will ya????

[Stingray2004]

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

Going back the highly democratic question of what alternative uses for the SFPR money might be, what if I were to rhetorically ask why are we in a hurry to build the SFPR when we have an enormous backlog of seismic upgrades to be performed on our children’s elementary schools?

Don't folk here have any IDEA on a day to day basis of regional transportation needs? I mean come on! The SFPR has been on the radar screen for over 20 years.

Do people here even understand the concept of inter-regional connectivity?

Do you even know that Delta council as well as Richmond council (inclusive of many New Democrats - Harold Steves comes to mind) have been clamouring for the expansion of the George Massey Tunnel for years?