[getsmart-l] Highway expansion (BC) at odds with going green

[Susanna Klopfer]

COMMENT: BRITISH COLUMBIA
Campbell's expansion plans at odds with going green

GARY MASON

May 8, 2007

VANCOUVER -- Only a few short months ago, he was the toast of tree  
huggers everywhere.

Gordon Campbell had pledged to do his bit to save the planet, and even  
British Columbia's notoriously skeptical greenies felt compelled to  
raise a glass of carrot juice in his honour.

But that was February, this is May. Now some of the country's leading  
voices on climate change are coming out against the Liberal Premier.  
The shift in wind direction has been astonishing.

Behind the mood change is the provincial government's Pacific Gateway  
initiative. Under the $3-billion plan, highways in the Lower Mainland  
will be expanded and a bridge twinned to alleviate the worst traffic  
congestion in the country.

It's a proposal that's been in the works for some time. It seemed to  
be forgotten, however, when in February Mr. Campbell announced  
measures to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in the province by 33 per  
cent below current levels. It was a planet-saving declaration even  
more ambitious in scope than that set out by California's green-caped  
crusader, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Today some are wondering how the premier squares his green dreams with  
the Gateway project. Critics say it will simply open up the roads for  
more cars. UBC professor William Rees, a world-leading expert on  
climate change, has called the plan "ludicrous." And Simon Fraser  
University's Mark Jaccard, whose work on global warming is  
increasingly being referred to by governments around the planet, has  
also come out against the project.

Do I even need to say what David Suzuki thinks?

Mr. Campbell has suddenly lost his street cred with the greenies.

In fact, the Gateway project is a brilliant example of just how  
complicated and difficult the problem of solving global warming truly  
is. Getting the public to change the type of light bulbs it uses is  
easy.

Finding ways to make meaningful cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions while  
attempting to keep your economy flourishing and your voters happy is  
really where the rubber meets the road.

The Gateway project is key to British Columbia's bid to become a major  
trade portal to vast and lucrative Asian markets. Container volumes in  
B.C. ports are expected to quadruple by 2020. However, that will  
depend largely on the efficient and easy movement of goods to market.

Fifty per cent of containerized goods are transported to and from  
terminals in Greater Vancouver by trucks. The B.C. Trucking  
Association estimates gridlock in the Lower Mainland costs roughly  
$500-million a year with the movement of goods slowed or at a complete  
standstill 75 per cent of the time.

Meantime, truck volumes are forecast to nearly triple between now and  
2031. That is the economic imperative behind the Gateway project.

There is also a voter imperative. Commuters in the eastern suburbs are  
also sick of the gridlock. A fender bender on the Port Mann Bridge,  
the one destined to be twinned, can make a 90-minute commute from  
outlying eastern suburbs like Surrey and Langley to downtown Vancouver  
two hours or more.

The government's latest estimates say the road and bridge expansions  
could shave 30 per cent off travel times.

Ask drivers who use the roads and bridges targeted by Gateway what  
they think of the project and most will say they're all for it.

This is exactly why Mr. Campbell's former friends in the environmental  
movement are so upset. Shaving time off commutes only encourages  
people to drive instead of taking transit, they insist.

B.C.'s current annual greenhouse-gas output is about 66 million tonnes.

To meet the targets set out in February, the government needs to find  
a way to cut 22 million tonnes a year while accommodating one of the  
fastest-growing populations in the country.

The transportation sector, meanwhile, accounts for 41 per cent of the  
province's greenhouse-gas total.

You can see why environmentalists are scratching their beards. The  
math doesn't work.

Unless the provincial government is going to pass a law stating that  
all cars driven in B.C. have to be electric, it's going to have a hard  
time meeting its ambitious targets.

Opponents of the Gateway project are comparing it to the fight against  
freeways back in the 1960s. In retrospect, the decision to say no to a  
road system most major cities in North America were embracing at the  
time was inspired. It became the foundation upon which Vancouver built  
one of the most livable big cities on the planet.

Whether detractors of Gateway have as much success as their  
ban-the-freeway forebears remains to be seen. But the debate around  
the project will certainly highlight just how thorny an issue global  
warming is to handle. In the end, it may tell us just how much we're  
prepared to sacrifice in the name of preserving Mother Earth.

Or whether we want to have our cake and eat it too?

gmason at globeandmail.com