Early SFPR completion projections missed time, money mark
Posted January 9, 2014 3:23 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
DELTA (NEWS1130) The province claims the South Fraser Perimeter Road was completed on time and on budget.
But not everything seems to add up.
There are arguments that if you look at projections from more than six years ago, “on time and on budget” doesn’t seem to be the case.
Years ago, the province’s original Gateway plan had the road opening in late 2012, but it opened last month.
Political columnist Laila Yuile says the original price tag was well under a billion dollars, and at some point, it grew to much more.
She claims taxpayers are now on the hook for an additional $200 million.
“They anticipate people are not going to go back to 2005 or 2009 and look at the press releases that were issued back then. When they come out and announce a project they count on the photo-op’s. They don’t actually count on what was in their own files and on their record. So they can pretty much say anything, and unless you have done the research, no one is going to know the difference.”
In an email to News1130 the province claims at the time it was dealing with 2005 numbers and once you factor in inflation and environmental approvals those numbers grew:
Question:
The original Gateway plan had this road opening in late 2012. The original $800 million cost somehow, at some point, grew to more than $1 billion.
How does the Ministry respond to it opening a year later than projected and at hundreds of millions of dollars higher in cost?
Response:
The final schedule to be open to traffic by the end of 2013 was established in 2010. In terms of the original schedule discussed in 2006, the date of 2012 was subject to environmental approvals; in the case of SFPR there was a one year delay in environmental approvals.
The current budget was established in 2010. The original cost estimate, established in 2006, was in $2005 (2005 dollars.) Allocating contingency and adding inflation, interest during construction and a $37M increase in 2010 for environmental works results in the budget established in 2010.
Question:
At one point the project included interchanges along the route, but that was downgraded to signalized intersections. It was billed as a way to get trucks to stop idling, yet they may end up in a cycle of stopping and starting. When can truck drivers and the public expect an upgrade to interchanges, as the provincial government has outlined will happen in the future?
Response:
Studies undertaken by traffic specialists show that interchanges are not needed at this time, and that the intersections at Sunbury and Tilbury will be able to accommodate predicted traffic volumes until 2021 and 2031.
The ministry has developed interchange concept designs, purchased property, and preloaded both locations to accommodate building future interchanges. The ministry will monitor traffic volumes to determine when interchanges are needed.
