Twinning the Port Mann would be a of columnist Ransford, without the Highway 1 use and the lessening of disaster in the future, in the opinion imposition of restrictions on Surrey’s restrictions on density.

Headlines this week and last spoke volumes about the direction of urban growth in the Lower Mainland. One appeared on the front page of this paper; the other, in a suburban weekly. They are linked.

The Sun headline, “Rush ‘hour’ now lasts five,” topped a story about TransLink’s latest Greater Vancouver trip survey which indicates the afternoon rush is nearly twice as long as it was only 10 years ago. The survey suggests the region’s transportation system can’t handle more growth in peak traffic loads.

The community newspaper’s headline, “Back to the drawing board for Delsom Estates plan,” went above a report on a recent public hearing on a proposed 1,000-townhouse development on 100 North Delta acres, site of a former gravel pit adjacent to Nordel Way.

A barrage of opposition to the development came from a long list of NIMBYs who proclaimed the 10-home-per-acre development too dense.

If 10 homes is too dense for a site right beside the Alex Fraser Bridge, you can only imagine what twinning the Port Mann Bridge will mean to urban growth in the Fraser Valley.

There might be some sense to twinning the Port Mann Bridge, but only if the new bridge and highway lanes beyond Surrey are restricted to transport trucks and other commercial vehicles and only if Surrey were to agree to triple its residential density.

Otherwise, the expansion of the bridge and Highway 1 all the way to Langley spells disaster for urban-growth management in the Lower Mainland.

The provincial government’s Gateway program has some merit when it talks of supporting the improved movement of people and goods facilitating economic growth.

There is no denying that growth in international shipping through our Pacific coast ports and the Vancouver International Airport will result in a 50-per-cent increase in truck traffic by 2021.

These facilities and the industries they support can’t remain competitive if traffic congestion inhibits the movement of products and services to markets.

Improved access to key economic gateways through improved links between ports, industrial areas, railways, airports and border crossings is essential.

But simply building more road and highway capacity that will also move commuters is not the answer.

The Lower Mainland’s quality of life is the envy of many in other urban centres where they have already made horrible planning mistakes.

If we want to maintain that quality of life, we need to get commuters off highways and main roads, by eliminating the need to commute, by increasing the diversity and availability of public transit and by increasing residential densities in developed areas.

We also need to change our attitude toward new development to accept a more diverse mix of jobs and housing in existing town centers.

I have no doubt that many commuters who currently use Highway 1 will take exception with my position. They want some relief from the congestion that makes daily commuting a time-consuming nightmare. That relief won’t come from twinning the Port Mann Bridge.

What will come is more development further up the Fraser Valley, adding more cars to a bigger network of highways.

Simply look at the Los Angeles Times real estate section. Like the section of this newspaper in which this column appears, the weekend Times has a section full of ads for new-home projects — most of them 90 minutes or more from downtown.

Young families in search of starter homes are forced to look at the new communities in the “high desert,” at least 70 minutes from downtown L.A. during normal traffic conditions. Double that time during rush hour.

Add more lanes to the commuter pipeline that flows out to the Fraser Valley and soon this section of the newspaper will be full of ads for new homes in Agassiz, Rosedale, Harrison Lake and Hope.

© The Vancouver Sun 2005

Artist’s rendering shows what the interior of YVR’s new Link building could look like in 2007. w double bridge allows unloading m front and rear of plane.

Just as Singapore acts as a gateway to Southeast Asia and Amsterdam to Europe, Larry Berg believes Vancouver International Airport can take on a similar role for the boom in Asian flights to North America.

“The last century was the Atlantic century, this one is the Pacific century,” said Berg, YVR’s president and chief executive officer. “Vancouver has the good fortune to be the shortest point between Asia and North America. That’s a tremendous advantage to us in developing this gateway, and playing a similar role to that of Singapore and Amsterdam in their regions.”

The Chinese tourism market alone is expected to grow 3.5 fold between now and 2014, from an $87-billion industry today to more than $300 billion, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.

Due to its expanding role as a gateway to Asia, YVR expects to serve in excess of 16 million passengers in 2005 with growth taking it to 21 million passengers in 2010 and over 45 million in 2044.

Berg looks at international airport facilities in Singapore and Amsterdam as models for what YVR can become.

“They had the vision that as small countries, much smaller than Canada, that they could capture a disproportionate share of the travel and trade activity into southeast Asia on one hand and northern Europe on the other.

“They set out on a strategy relative to that and if you go to one of those two airports today you can see that. Singapore is one of the major airports in southeast Asia with a population of just three million and Amsterdam has more inbound traffic to Europe than [London‘s] Heathrow. They have captured a lot of the inbound traffic to Europe through a coordinated strategy that includes infrastructure, policies at the airport and a government policy that is very supportive of that strategy.

“Dubai is another example. Emirates Air has become one of the top two or three airlines in the world and Dubai has become one of the major transit points between Asia and Europe. They created that in just the last seven or eight years.”

Serving a projected 45 million passengers in a facility designed to handle fewer than half of that is the challenge that faces YVR. Work is underway on Phases II and III of the new international terminal, which will bring YVR’s total capacity to 22 million passengers a year.

YVR has embarked on a $1.4-billion capital program designed to ensure the facility can handle the expected growth in passengers as well as the newer, larger aircraft of the future. This includes the $420-million expansion to the international terminal, $352 million on information technology and sustaining capital and $300 million for the airport spur of the RAV line.

When these projects are completed — in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics — YVR will have added nine gates to its international terminal and a five-storey link building that will act as the connecting hub for RAV line passengers to the domestic and international terminals. At that point Berg and his team will have a strategic plan that will take them through the next 20 years and beyond, a plan that will likely include a new terminal building, an additional runway and a comprehensive ground transportation program.

Physical expansion is just the tip of the iceberg. Today’s modern airports require the cooperation of myriad agencies and government departments to work efficiently and effectively. This is a lesson most airports learn the hard way, and YVR is no exception.

“It’s not only about runways and terminals. All of the agencies that work here have to be upsized as well,” said Berg. “For example, if customs and immigration is too small, then people will miss their flights because people won’t be able to connect. If CATSA (Canadian Air Transport Security Authority) is inefficient, then you will have massive delays. If the baggage system is not scaled appropriately, you have the same thing.

“Everything has to run on a certain scale, it’s not as simple as just throwing up another terminal. All of your other systems have to be upscaled to handle the increased passenger and baggage volumes.”

Failure to anticipate and coordinate those needs will result in an airport that can’t compete on a global scale, and the loss of carriers to neighbouring markets that will meet their demands. Catering to the needs of the Asian market is key to sustaining YVR’s growth in the next 40 years and beyond.

“If you haven’t got the infrastructure for the carriers you aren’t going to attract the traffic,” said Berg. “One of the difficulties with the Asian traffic is that it is very peaky. Everyone wants to be here between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m,. so you end up building infrastructure to accommodate that peak.

“If you don’t have that capacity, they are going to go where they get that capacity — San Francisco, Seattle or L.A. Or they are going to fly over you with longer -range aircraft, so we need to have the capacity to maintain our competitiveness as a gateway.”

The alternative is pretty straightforward; in this business it is essentially a matter of compete or be put in mothballs. Berg and his team know that the decisions they make in putting together a strategic plan to carry them through the next 40 years will determine whether they follow the examples of Singapore and Amsterdam or that of Montreal‘s Mirabel airport.

Mirabel opened for business 30 years ago at a cost of $1 billion but is now closed to passenger traffic after a series of ruinous decisions by Quebec and federal lawmakers. Mirabel was probably doomed right from the start given its distance to downtown Montreal (55 kilometres) but a failure to properly predict trends in the aviation industry drove a stake through its heart.

“At the time, the new planes that were being built were [supersonic] Concordes, which required long runways and were noisy and not very environmentally friendly,” Jacques Roy, a transportation expert at the University of Montreal’s business school, told the Toronto Star last year. “So, the idea was to build an airport far away from the city.”

It turned out that technology let manufacturers develop highly efficient, environmentally friendly aircraft that were not nearly as loud or intrusive as their predecessors.

Poor planning cost Mirabel an opportunity to become the gateway to Europe for eastern Canada and the Maritimes, a mistake that Berg and his team are unwilling to repeat at YVR.

“As a result of that Montreal, which is a bigger city than Vancouver, only has 10 million passengers [a year],” Berg said.

“They failed to develop the international air traffic that a city like Montreal would warrant. Carriers wanted to go there but they weren’t going to go to Mirabel. It didn’t work for the carriers, it didn’t work for the passengers and it didn’t work for the province.

“Now they are playing the catch-up game at Dorval, but for a city like Montreal to have two-thirds of Vancouver‘s traffic despite having the greater population shows that there has definitely been a failure in policy.”

All of which is why Berg is putting so much emphasis on getting it right as YVR goes through its strategic planning process. The next generation of aircraft — Boeing’s medium-capacity, long-range 787 and the gargantuan Airbus A380 — will drastically alter the landscape and YVR wants to be able to capitalize on those changes.

To do so, YVR must figure out how to make the airport experience — for inbound and outbound passengers — as painless as possible. That means reducing, or eliminating, lineups for security, customs, immigration and baggage retrieval.

A Herculean task, but one that Berg’s team feels can be accomplished through the effective use of new and future technology, plus a little common sense.

YVR is considering a variety of baggage-handling options as part of its expansion to the international terminal, recognizing that more passengers means more luggage that must be processed effectively and efficiently.

The solution is not as straightforward as simply adding more carousels, said Bob Cowan, YVR’s senior vice-president of engineering,

“The A380 aircraft will have about 1,000 bags on it. That’s a lot of bags, so we have to get some bigger carousels to handle those bigger aircraft,” Cowan said.

“We also need to work with the Canadian Border Services Agency, the old Customs and Immigration, to allow them to streamline their process so that they can get people through the primary line quicker. If they can do that, it will mean that the passenger will be at the carousel when their bag arrives instead of the bag being there way ahead of the passenger, which is a real problem.”

Cowan has studied airports around the world to try to find workable solutions. He recently returned from Hong Kong and Seoul, South Korea, where he found two airports that are on the right track.

“Both of them have the customs issue solved. First of all, they have enough carousels. But probably more importantly, they have very efficient immigration processes. You get through their lines very, very quickly.

“In Hong Kong, more than 92 per cent of the passengers get through the primary line within 10 minutes. That’s impressive,” Cowan said.

“Practically everyone is at the carousel before their bags arrive. That’s not something you can say very often about Vancouver. What that means is that as quickly as the bags arrive there are people there to take them off [the carousel], they don’t stack up on top of each other.

“What we are learning now, and Seoul is similar with a very efficient immigration and enough carousels, is that it is a combination of having enough carousels and creating a very efficient primary [immigration] line.”

Kevin Molloy’s job, as YVR’s vice-president of simplified passenger travel, is to monitor the latest developments in the airline industry — from the use of biometrics for passenger identification to the expansion of government programs such as Nexus and Canpass that allow for advanced screening of passengers, to the development of a robotic arm to sort luggage — and make the correct recommendation on its use at Vancouver International.

In many cases, YVR is at the forefront of technological growth, acting as a test site for a variety of innovations including the popular kiosk check-in systems and a ground-breaking radio frequency identification system to track baggage.

The self-service kiosk check-in systems — now used by more than 75 per cent of YVR’s domestic passengers and soon to be available on all of the international carriers as well — are a perfect example of how life can be made simpler for travelers through technology.

Air Canada was the first to employ the systems at YVR but others, including WestJet, have been quick to see the benefits.

“The domestic self-service has given us about a 250- to 300-per-cent capacity improvement,” Molloy said. “Two years ago at 7 a.m., which is our domestic peak, lineups were everywhere and there was complete congestion. In the two years since, Air Canada has increased their passengers by about 25 per cent and through their restructuring have significantly downsized their workforce.”

The efficiency of the system will be enhanced even further with the completion of the RAV line in 2009. All of its stations, as well as a number of downtown sites such as the convention centre, will be outfitted with the self-service check-in kiosks.

But these types of innovations require more than just the will of YVR to be successful.

“We don’t move our industry forward by us simply wanting to,” said Molloy. “We need airlines to come along with us, we need government agencies to come along with us, so we are very much in a kind of advocacy position of promoting some of these products to government and to airlines.”

It all comes down to doing it right, but doing it at the right time.

“Timing is a huge issue for us. We are in facilities expansion mode,” said Molloy. “We may be pushing the envelope in exploring some of these very new leading-edge options, but that is because we don’t want to open a new facility in two years only to have these things become de facto standards the following year and then have to retrofit the facility.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2005

When Time magazine’s cover story is on America‘s obsession with real estate, that’s a sure sign the peak for building supplies has arrived, according to Paul Quinn, forestry analyst at Salman Partners.

“Americans are spending money on real estate like never before,” Quinn says in his current research paper to investors. “In our mind, this is a sure sign of the peak of the market. Demand can only get weaker going forward as borrowing rates rise. Prices will not be sustainable once investment demand is taken out of the market.”

Time’s June 13 cover story, Home Sweet Home, depicts a homeowner hugging his house.

Quinn said the market for building products has never been stronger, so it’s time investors considered profit-taking in the lumber and panel board sectors. Conditions are not likely to get any better than they are right now, he said.

Quinn said 23 per cent of home purchases in the U.S. are now for investment purposes, well above the norm of eight to 10 per cent. He said regions of the U.S., like Las Vegas, where prices are up 50 per cent over last year, are definitely in a real estate bubble.

It’s a matter of when, not if, the turn comes, Quinn said in an interview. He gives it no more than six months.

“I don’t think it gets higher. But what it’s going to take [for the market] to come off are rising long-term rates, slower employment growth, or a lack of home appreciation.”

He is looking out for an upward movement in long-term mortgage rates. Short-term interest rates are rising, but long-term rates are being kept low by Chinese and Japanese investors buying up U.S. 10-year bonds, propping up the U.S. dollar, and in the process maintaining favourable exchange rates for their consumer goods.

Laurie Cater, publisher of Madison‘s Canadian Lumber Reporter, agrees there is reason to be wary in today’s building products market, but added that the same sentiment existed last year. Yet the housing boom has not let up.

U.S. housing starts have climbed from 1.71 million in 2002 to 1.95 million in 2004, and are on track to hit 2.07 million this year.

Cater said the heavily levered mortgage vehicles now available in the U.S., specifically where investors only need to make interest payments, worry him because when demand does turn, it could turn hard.

At West Fraser Timber, the second largest producer of industry-standard spruce, pine and fir construction lumber, sales vice-president Ernie Thony said lumber demand remains strong. Supply is increasing as mills ramp up production here and in the U.S.

“Sales are still robust,” Thony said. “I think it looks pretty good this year, but I don’t think we are going to see the prices we saw last year.”

SPF lumber has dropped from $433 US a thousand board feet in 2004 to $365 US today, largely because of the supply-side increases. Current prices are still profitable for B.C.’s lean lumber industry, despite tariffs averaging 21 per cent on exports to the U.S.

Quinn recommends investors take their profits now because until demand weakens, the supply-side increases are going to keep prices from climbing much higher. Major U.S. homebuilders are reporting home order files of over six months, but there is no shortage of wood, particularly oriented strand board (OSB), a panel board that has virtually replaced plywood in the U.S. housing market.

He notes that 14 new OSB mills have been announced or are under construction already, with the first one on stream this month and another two before the end of the year.

And the mountain pine beetle has led to an increase in lumber production in B.C.

At the same time, western U.S. production is up, as are imports from Europe.

Quinn said when the downturn comes, he expects OSB plants to feel the pinch more than lumber producers because of the huge supply-side increase.

“I think it’s all over for those guys,” he said of OSB.

“But lots of lumber companies are in very good shape in terms of their balance sheets. They are pretty low-cost companies. They will still do well even with lower prices,” he said.

“As well, all of them have this huge softwood lumber deposit, which at some point will get resolved. I don’t think that has adequately been reflected in the share price right now.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2005

As far as mega-projects go, few rival the Gateway Program. With an expected price tag of nearly $3 billion — or about $1,500 for every area resident — it will be the most expensive transportation project ever done in the Lower Mainland.

By comparison, the improvements to the Sea to Sky Highway from West Vancouver to Whistler are expected to cost $600 million.

The provincially backed program is being viewed by its advocates as the engineering mega-solution to traffic congestion in the Lower Mainland.

It includes the twinning of the Port Mann Bridge and widening the Trans-Canada Highway by two lanes from Langley to Vancouver, a distance of 33 kilometres; an improved, 17-km perimeter road along the north side of the Fraser River; and a new four-lane highway along the south side of the Fraser.

– – –

Doug Proudfoot, executive director of the Gateway Program, said the highway improvements are crucial for moving goods to and from the Lower Mainland’s ports and international border crossings, which are also slated for multi-million-dollar improvements.

In sizing up the task ahead, engineers have been calculating travel times using a sophisticated computer model, based on population growth and future traffic flow patterns.

“That’s been a huge part of the work that we’ve been doing for the last little while,” Proudfoot said.

About 20 people are working out of the Gateway Program office, Proudfoot said. Delcan Engineering, an international firm with a Vancouver office, is the primary engineering consultant. CH2M Hill has been hired for technical advice and Acres International is doing environmental assessments.

“It’s a very large and complex task,” Proudfoot said. “We’ve been working on the planning and development aspects for about a year and a half now.”

But so far there is no firm time line for completing the Gateway projects.

“There’s a four- to five-year construction horizon,” Proudfoot said. “And that’s once we’re through the community consultation and the environmental assessments and the procurement process.”

– – –

The program will generate up to 15,000 person-years of employment through design and construction, said Proudfoot.

But recent reports by the Canada West Foundation, the B.C. Business Council and the B.C. Federation of Labour have warned of an impending shortage of skilled labourers.

“There’s no doubt we’re in an unprecedented period of construction in Vancouver, and B.C. generally,” said Keith Sashaw, president of the Vancouver Regional Construction Association.

Sashaw said 40,000 new people have joined the construction industry in the last eight months alone but there has still been an increase in construction costs.

“There has been some upward pressure on construction costs over the last eight months to a year,” Sashaw said. “But I’m sure the people who are putting the projects out are aware of that and will factoring that into budgets.”

Proudfoot doesn’t expect a labour shortage to be a major problem.

“It isn’t really an issue,” Proudfoot said. “Any party, any contractor, will have to guarantee the supply of workers, that will be a key element in determining the scope and timing of the project.”

Proudfoot added the Gateway Program is working with other provincial projects, such as the Sea to Sky highway, to avoid bidding wars over the same contractors.

The Gateway projects could also be fighting for construction materials. The South Fraser Perimeter Road alone will require more than one million metric tonnes of gravel — more than a large gravel pit produces in a year. The widening of 33 kilometres along the Trans-Canada Highway will likely have similar requirements.

“At this point, we haven’t heard of any shortages in terms of gravel or concrete. And the availability of steel seems to have rectified itself,” Sashaw said. “But we fully expect there will be spot shortages here and there, and the industry will have to address those.”

Concrete and steel prices have increased sharply in recent years, but Proudfoot said the increases been taken into account in the projected $3-billion budget.

– – –

On the funding front, so far the project has been allocated only $291 million. The money — provided in this spring’s provincial budget — is being used for traffic studies, designs and public consultation, said Proudfoot.

One revenue source being considered is toll roads, one of the more contentious aspects of the Gateway Program.

Proudfoot said tolling is being modelled for both the Trans-Canada Highway and the eastern section of the South Fraser Perimeter Road. Tolls are considered a potential means of controlling traffic demand, as well as generating revenue. Toll fees have yet to be determined, said Proudfoot.

– – –

Twinning the Port Mann Bridge and widening the Trans-Canada Highway is projected to cut 20 minutes off a Langley-to-Vancouver trip. Similarly, the South Fraser Perimeter Road will speed up trips between the Trans-Canada Highway and Highway 99 by 15 minutes. (There is no estimate yet as to how much the North Fraser Perimeter Road will improve travel time.)

Not surprisingly, it’s a problem that will only get worse. By 2021, the Lower Mainland population is expected to increase by 1 million. Truck traffic alone will increase by 50 per cent, according to the B.C. Trucking Association.

ANATOMY OF A TRANSPORTATION OVERHAUL: SCALE, FUNCTION, REALITY:

Although many details of the Gateway program remain unknown, the scale of the building project is becoming clearer.

MAKING IT HAPPEN WILL REQUIRE PROVINCE, NATION — AND INDIVIDUALS

REVENUE SOURCES

Homeowners, motorists and senior levels of government can expect to be tapped to fund Gateway’s construction and operations.

– Estimated cost of $3 billion.

– Current funding of $291 million from provincial budget.

– Toll roads are being considered for the Trans-Canada / Port Mann corridor and the eastern section of the South Fraser Perimeter Road.

– Public consultation on the South Fraser Perimeter Road began last spring, but has since been shelved due to lack of money.

– Transport Minister Kevin Falcon is appealing for federal funding, particularly for the South Fraser Perimeter Road.

GETTING PHYSICAL: THREE MAIN PROJECTS

PORT MANN CROSSING

The existing bridge would be twinned, providing a total of eight lanes over the Fraser River. Two lanes would be added to the Trans-Canada from Langley to Vancouver, a distance of 33 kilometres. Up to 10 highway interchanges would be reconstructed and travel time would be reduced by up to 20 minutes.

SOUTH FRASER PERIMETER ROAD

A new four-lane, 80 km/h road from Deltaport Way in Delta to the proposed Golden Ears Bridge, a distance of 40 kilometres. Several new interchanges would be constructed. Connecting Deltaport and Surrey Fraser Docks to the regions major highways, the road would be used primarily for goods transport. Travel time between the Trans-Canada Highway and Highway 99 would be reduced by 15 minutes.

NORTH FRASER PERIMETER ROAD

The road would run 17 kilometres from the Queensborough Bridge in New Westminster to the proposed Golden Ears Bridge in Pitt Meadows, primarily serving goods transport. The road would include a new six-lane bridge over the Pitt River and an interchange at Mary Hill Bypass and Lougheed Highway. There is no estimate for travel-time reduction.

BUILDING IT WILL REQUIRE MANY SKILLED TRADES

Jobs:

– An estimated 10-15,000 worker-years of employment directly related to the project.

– 40,000 new people have entered B.C.’s construction industry in the last eight months.

– Despite that influx, B.C. still faces a serious shortage of skilled labourers that could drive up construction prices.

– Pre-Olympic construction is expected to peak in 2008.

Materials:

– An estimated 300,000 metric tonnes of asphalt and one million metric tonnes of gravel for the 40-kilometre-long South Fraser Perimeter Road.

KNOWING HOW TO BUILD AN OVERPASS IS JUST ONE OF MANY CHALLENGES

The Gateway project has many components, including the construction of several new overpasses and the reconstruction of all the interchanges along Highway 1 between Langley and Vancouver.

To give some idea of the scope of such an ambitious project, consider one example of an overpass project that was recently completed in the Lower Mainland: the 200th Street interchange at Highway 1 in Langley.

It officially opened last September after more than a decade of planning, consultation, construction and delays.

The process of bringing the long-awaited interchange to completion could be a smaller-scale example of what’s to come with the Gateway program as it begins to move forward.

Township of Langley transportation engineer Paul Cordeiro worked on the 200th Street project and provided the accompanying guide to the complex process from start to finish.

Stage 1: Planning

– Planning for the project initially began in 1986, but was not looked at seriously until several years later.

– In the mid-’90s, traffic studies were done by the province, and some design concepts developed.

– In 1999, the province and township decided on a preferred concept for the overpass design.

– Concept was put to engineering and developer partnerships for bidding. The interchange was a public-private partnership, something still under consideration for Gateway.

– Three bids were received and after review the township and province decided contractor BA Blacktop would get the contract.

Stage 2: Engineering

– Initially, more time was required to work on the detailed design for the project.

– The contractor’s plan was different from the preferred design concept, so further studies had to be done.

– According to designer Buckland and Taylor Bridge Engineering, the six-lane overpass consists of a post-tensioned concrete slab over two spans of 22 metres each. According to B&T, “To accommodate curved access, the unusual overpass is bow-tie shape in plan. The slab is seated at the top of abutment walls at both ends.”

– A safety study was done by ICBC and more traffic studies were completed, resulting in delays.

– Environmental studies also had to be completed.

Stage 3: Public Consultation

– Public consultation occurred throughout the planning and engineering stages.

– The project involved part of the land being developed for retail use, so the neighbourhood had to be consulted on what would be allowed.

– In open houses on the design of the interchange, residents raised concerns about an increase of stoplights in the design — from one signal in the old overpass to four in the new design.

Stage 4: Construction

– Construction finally began in 2001.

– The original design was for a four-lane overpass, but after construction began the design was expanded to six lanes, causing delays and increased costs.

– Through the years of construction, three different phases of detours and rerouting traffic were implemented as parts of the project were completed.

– At a final cost of $34 million, the interchange became fully operational in August 2004

— Jennifer Miller, Vancouver Sun

ON THE STREET:

We wanted to check on general awareness of the Gateway Program and asked regular commuters what they know about it.

“What my understanding is that they’re looking at a range of different projects, like new highways, expanded highways, additional transit initiatives, that kind of thing — but I don’t know the specifics.”

Shawn Hall

Communications manager, commutes from Cloverdale to downtown Vancouver

“Nothing really. I know there is a lot of road work going on, which doesn’t help the traffic situation. They need to improve public transportation. I would consider taking public transportation if it was a little better.”

Ricky Gruetz

Interior designer, commutes from North Delta to downtown Vancouver

“I just know about the twinning of the Port Mann Bridge. I live close to the Pattullo Bridge and I know that during rush hour it can get backed up quite far. I think [expanding highways] is a never-ending cycle.”

Kenny Wong

Architectural technologist, takes SkyTrain from Surrey to downtown Vancouver

“I’ve heard they want to make a highway and I don’t like that. I don’t think making space for more cars is the solution. I do agree that there has to be some other way to come into the city than by car. I’d rather have people keep looking for another solution than compromise for the people living around [East First Avenue]. I come from Montreal, and I know how big [highways] can become.”

Kamaja Phaneuf, elementary teaching assistant, resident on East 2nd Avenue and Commercial Drive

© The Vancouver Sun 2005

CREDIT: Peter Battistoni, Vancouver Sun (In the search for consensus, Port Mann Bridge is the bottleneck)

B.C.’s most monumental highway-building project since the days of Social Credit premier W.A.C. Bennett will be unveiled in August.

It’s called the Gateway Program and it promises to be one of the Lower Mainland’s most volatile political issues for years.

Indeed, whether and how the Gateway Program is built will shape the future of Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley for decades to come. Some say for better, others for worse.

Everyone agrees that Greater Vancouver has a serious traffic problem that is slowing the movement of goods and commuters to a crawl, and that something has to be done.

–

Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon, the man behind the project and a champion of Surrey‘s right to control its own growth — there is a connection — says it will be built.

Falcon said a long-awaited project definition report that nails down exactly what the government wants to build is due in August. It will constitute the starting gun for the next round of project planning, consultation and, of course, politics.

Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell mutters that if the Liberals build this project over municipal objections, they had better enjoy the next four years because they won’t be in office after that.

Campbell did not say whether he personally plans to climb the ladder to provincial politics to enforce his verdict.

Gordon Price, a former Vancouver city councillor and a close ally of Premier Gordon Campbell when he was mayor of Vancouver in the 1980s and helping shape the region’s planning priorities, says the Gateway Program signals a 180-degree turnaround from those priorities.

– rice, who now lectures and consults on urban planning, has joined the Livable Region Coalition to oppose the Gateway Program which, he says, means giving up Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley to the automobile, and to urban sprawl.

–

The Gateway Program is a grand plan for solving Greater Vancouver’s major traffic problems — especially the highway congestion that is slowing goods-moving trucks in and out of the region’s ports but also the ever-slower highway commutes between parts of the region — in a single, multi-billion-dollar stroke.

It includes:

– The twinning of the Port Mann Bridge.

– Widening the Trans-Canada Highway from Langley to Vancouver.

– A new four-lane South Fraser Perimeter Road.

– A new North Fraser Perimeter Road.

It appeared on the provincial agenda several years ago and appeared to be a wish list for the region’s ports and transportation industries, which estimate the economic cost of goods languishing in backed-up traffic has reached $1.5 billion a year. It did not have much of a profile.

Last year it fell into place with an audible click, like the last piece in a big jigsaw puzzle. Some of the other parts:

For three decades or so, the Greater Vancouver Regional District has tried to encourage development in town centres strung along transit routes, especially in the northeast quadrant of the region.

The idea was to prevent sprawl, preserve green space and farm land, and encourage compact development, jobs located near homes and travel by transit.

Its success has been limited. Growth did occur along the route of the proposed northeast rapid transit line. But south of the Fraser, Surrey and others were often criticized for approving office parks and subdivisions in places unforeseen by the regional plan, at densities difficult to serve by road and impossible by transit.

With population growth came increasing political clout for Surrey, and resentment of what was perceived as pious prattling by smug Vancouverites.

The provincial election of 2001 and the municipal elections of 2002 changed everything.

The Liberals turfed the NDP out of office, Gordon Campbell became premier and Falcon, the MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale, emerged as a force in cabinet. In 2002, new municipal councils sent delegates to regional bodies who handed the influential chairs of the district and TransLink boards, both long held by Vancouver, to Surrey Coun. Marvin Hunt and Mayor Doug McCallum.

TransLink switched priorities and the Richmond-Airport-Vancouver line vaulted to the top of the agenda, ahead of northeast rapid transit.

There were bloodbaths at TransLink board meetings as some directors held out for different routes and cheaper technology. Twice, they voted against the RAV Line, and Falcon threatened to take back the province’s $450-million contribution. He had a better place to spend it.

That’s how the Gateway Program got on the table.

The RAV Line was resurrected on the third vote, but Falcon wouldn’t put the Gateway Program back on the shelf.

If we want to deal seriously with congestion we have to build it, he insisted Tuesday.

“I have to make decisions based on the reality of growth in this region, not on the basis of a model which many municipalities aren’t even following or adhering to, and which hasn’t been updated — the Livable Region Plan,” Falcon said.

“The reality of what’s happening is that Surrey is the fastest-growing city in the province, and within the next 10 to 15 years will be larger in population than Vancouver.

“The Port Mann Bridge is the most congested corridor in the Lower Mainland, in fact, in the entire province. Nothing else comes close. You can’t ignore that.”

For Gordon Price, a member of several centre-right Vancouver city councils who favours “sustainable” planning, alarm bells are ringing.

“Why are they locking us into a form of development that everyone acknowledges doesn’t work?” he asks, referring to studies that show other cities have invariably failed to build their way out congestion.

The studies show new road capacity fills up, often quickly. The result is the same level of congestion but with more vehicles on bigger roads and therefore, more air pollution.

“It creates a way of life that even to the people who are going to live [in Surrey and the southern Fraser Valley] will be expensive, frustrating and will take us in the directions that everyone acknowledges we don’t want to go,” Price said.

“Once you’ve spent that three to five billion dollars and you’ve clearly said, ‘We are building an automobile and truck future,’ there isn’t much left to talk about.”

He argues that freeways that are meant to bypass congestion attract the very type of development that creates congestion — big-box stores, shopping malls, theatre complexes and the like — and the roads quickly fill with cars making short trips from one parking lot to another.

– rice also wonders about suggestions — by Falcon and others — that there might be tolls on lanes for high-occupancy vehicles or trucks on the twinned Port Mann Bridge.

There’s only one reason anyone would pay tolls to drive in a special lane, he says: the other lanes are congested. That’s not a good signal to send before the project is built.

Ultimately, Price thinks Campbell has to have the last word.

“I think the premier will really have to clarify what he believes the future of the Lower Mainland is. That’s the stakes we’re really talking about.”

Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell takes a similar tack.

“We know we have to have roads built to move goods from the port and from the airport onto the highway and wherever they’re going,” Campbell said Tuesday from Montreal. “But twinning the Port Mann is just not on, period. It makes no sense at all.”

Campbell says he’d rather run light rail all the way from Chilliwack into the SkyTrain system. “That would take cars off the road, which then would allow trucks that have to be on the road more opportunity to get from Point A to Point B.”

If the province insists on building the project it probably can, he said, but not without a fight.

“Municipalities are not going to put up with bullying from Minister Falcon, and that’s what this really is.

“It’s my intention to talk to the premier about it. There’s no sense in talking to Minister Falcon.”

Falcon said the blustering doesn’t bother him.

He’s used to municipal politicians who want to “cherry-pick” projects and just have the parts built that they have a stake in.

“Doing one piece of the puzzle isn’t adequate. We have to move forward with all of the pieces.”

He said the government won’t be dropping the South Fraser Perimeter Road off the program, even though it has been signalling recently that the road now depends on new federal funding.

Falcon did not disagree that there is federal money up for grabs and B.C. wants a piece of it; the perimeter road is a good candidate because it will be moving goods from federal port facilities. The road will still be built if the federal money doesn’t materialize, he said, but it might take a little longer.

Falcon reiterated that he’s on the side of the angels when it comes to development.

“You cannot build your way out of congestion,” he said. “I am a strong adherent of that philosophy.”

He promised that the government will not only twin the Port Mann, it will also study “how to get people out of their cars and into other options.”

That might mean putting transit over the new Port Mann, dedicated lanes for commercial vehicles and “a whole range of demand management approaches to traffic, so we don’t just build and expect that’s going to solve the problem.”

He’s not worried about opposition to the plan, he said, because that’s “the reality of the Lower Mainland. No matter what you plan on doing, you will always have opposition.”

Some of the opposition will come from New Westminster, where city councillor Chuck Puchmayr is the new NDP MLA.

– uchmayr agrees Greater Vancouver needs to free up truck traffic, and he thinks the South Fraser Perimeter Road will do the job. It would take pressure off the Port Mann, give trucks easy access to the Alex Fraser Bridge, the Knight Street corridor and Richmond, and eliminate some of the cross-town traffic that now ties up downtown New Westminster.

Twinning the Port Mann and widening the Trans-Canada, however, will just open the floodgates to more traffic, which will create rebound congestion, which will further foul the region’s air, Puchmayr said.

“People as far east as Hope are sometimes instructed to stay indoors because of the poor air quality. Are we going to double the volume of single occupancy vehicles in that corridor and sacrifice the health of people living in that airshed?”

– uchmayr said the government should stop insisting it’s going to build the project before it has even started public consultations.

“I’m hoping they will listen to the opposition, listen to the communities and work towards achieving something that works for everyone.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2005

CREDIT: Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun Roger Couldrey is president and chief executive officer of Canada Post’s highly successful epost electronic mail delivery service, now serving nearly 300,000 Canadians.

Nearly 300,000 Canadians signed up for Canada Post’s electronic postal payment service in the first three months of this year, epost president and CEO Roger Couldrey says.

He credits surging interest to epost’s emergence as the dominant player since it acquired webdox, its primary competitor, last year.

And he’s hoping interest will snowball this summer as the last of the major financial institutions integrate their online banking systems with epost and word spreads that the number of companies using the service for billing has reached critical mass.

So far the free service is used by about two million of Canada‘s 11 million Internet banking households.

Research suggests it takes at least five electronic bills to interest individuals in subscribing to a service that allows them to receive and pay bills from any location where they have online access.

Epost has signed up more than 100 companies, many of them major names, and Couldrey says that translates into seven to 10 pieces of mail that the average consumer can receive electronically each month.

In addition to the big banks, B.C. mailers using epost include Canadian Tire, Chevron, Citifinancial, City of Burnaby, City of Richmond, City of Nanaimo, Future Shop, HBC, Home Hardware, Rogers, Telus, Terasen Gas, The Brick, United Furniture Warehouse, Visions Electronics and Zellers. BC Hydro and the City of Vancouver are coming soon.

The advantage for billers is that they save money, paying about 40 cents apiece for an electronic bill versus 70 cents to $2 for snail mail, depending on what’s counted in the cost, Couldrey said in an interview in Vancouver.

Apart from saving on stamps, convenience is the primary advantage for consumers. They can pay bills when they want and from where they want, a significant advantage for snowbirds and summer vacationers.

Many of epost’s two million subscribers also access epost through their bank’s website, allowing them to centralize their financial management. Now the two major payroll companies, Ceridian and ADP, are getting involved, allowing for electronic delivery of pay stubs.

Intuit has also signed up, allowing users of Quicken and QuickTax to synchronize data and pre-populate their online tax returns, reducing the likelihood of input errors.

“It is all coming together,” Couldrey said. “It has been a slow birth but our volumes have been going up 10 per cent per month since the integration of webdox and epost.”

Visit www.epost.ca for more information.

© The Vancouver Sun 2005

CREDIT: Jason Payne, The Province Spy Zone’s night-vision binoculars offer a SWAT-team level of performance.

Spy gear has come a long way from periscopes and pen cameras. The latest espionage accessories are high-style and high-tech.

Today’s sophisticated spy cameras are no longer limited to buttonholes and duffle bags. Virtually any office or household item can be outfitted with electronic eyes.

Among the most practical are cameras masquerading as working alarm clocks (Spy Zone’s wireless, coloured camera model is $260), pencil sharpeners, TV antennas, smoke detectors, baby monitors, cigarette packs, exit signs, VCRs, plants, cellphones, table lamps, teddy bears and books.

Think you could spot one of these covert appliances? Don’t forget to look up: a replica ceiling sprinkler ($495 US; www.spystuff.com) serves as an aerial Big Brother.

Outdoor monitoring requires heavy-duty hardware such as night-vision goggles. Spy Zone’s Starlight infrared night-vision binoculars offer SWAT-team style performance, amplifying nighttime ambient light to create an image field ($999; www.spyzoneonline.com).

For outdoor, after-dark recording, Purely Security’s Dual Wide Angle Night Vision Wireless Cameras let you switch channels for two different infrared camera views ($215 US). Or create your own after-dark recorder using a night-vision wireless unit the size of a sugar cube ($50 US; both available at www.purelysecurity.com).

No modern-day Mata Hari should embark on a mission without stocking her purse with portable spy goodies: a lipstick-sized camera for powder-room photos ($180 US; www.cctvwholesalers.com), a peephole reverser to see into hotel rooms ($150) and sunglasses with mirrors to check for tails ($15; both www.spycityonline.com).

Don’t forget spy pens and paper: The latest pens write upside down and under water, detect counterfeit bills with special ink or use disappearing ink. Spy paper dissolves when wet (pens $12-$20, paper $10; www.spycityonline.com).

Need to give an anonymous tip? Placed over any phone receiver, the Micro Voice Disguiser ($69.95 US; www.spyworld.com) can even make a woman’s voice sound like a man’s.

Meanwhile, cyber sneaks and computer hackers are having a field day with spyware.

Keystroke loggers allow users to capture and record keystrokes: everything from e-mail and bank passwords to website addresses. This gizmo can wreak havoc on a user at a public internet terminal ($159; www.thespystore.com). Phone jammers can circumvent call display by faking numbers using software such as CIDMAGE ($59.95 US; www.artofhacking.com).

For every spy there’s a counter-spy, and counter-surveillance gear is key to stopping security threats.

Bug detectors will unearth listening devices, wireless cameras, cellphones and taps ($240; www.spyworld.com).

To foil bugs you can’t find, room sound barriers such as the AJ-34 Audio Jammer will generate a masking hiss that desensitizes microphones or recorders ($129 US; www.thespysource.com).

If you want to scramble spy cameras, video detectors will identify oscillation field emissions and sound an alert.

To clear your phone line, telephone tap detectors can pick up line taps and radio-frequency signals from body wires and automatically mute conversations ($350 each; www.spycityonline.com).

MISSION CLASSIFIED

Not every mission is possible. Nor every spy gadget practical.

No one knows this better than the CIA. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of its Directorate of Science and Technology in 2003, it curated an exhibition of its silliest surveillance inventions.

Absurd espionage experiments include a 1970s project to fly a minibug into a room using an actual mechanical insect.

Luckily, scientists realized that a bumblebee robot would fly too erratically before they got too far.

Then they tried a dragonfly spy prototype before researchers discovered the “insectothopter” could be brought down by wind.

They weren’t all failures. The agency successfully used listening devices disguised as tiger droppings in Vietnam and flew pigeons with tiny cameras strapped to their chests above enemy targets.

It also tested a rubber robot catfish named Charlie that was designed to swim undetected in rivers.

His mission is still classified.

© The Vancouver Province 2005

TORONTO — New-home advertisements that promise granite kitchen counters, hardwood floors, and step-up Jacuzzi bathtubs may be enticing, but asking questions about the soundproofing materials and construction techniques used in your potential new home may be a better investment in happiness.

“You walk into a place, it’s three bedrooms and it’s near a good school,” says Toronto architect Paul Raff of Paul Raff Studio, “and you think: ‘This is it!'”

And you don’t ask questions about soundproofing — out of sight, out of mind, Raff says.

“It’s invisible. But it has a huge impact on quality of life.”

Consumers may also feel they are protected — in new buildings at least — by the building code. But, experts agree, that is not the case.

Building to the code is “the worst building you can legally build,” says Rob Stevens, a partner with HGC Engineering, which consults on sound transmission for builders and condominium corporations.

“It’s not a blueprint for an excellent building. It’s the minimum requirement.”

Or, as John Straube, a professor in the civil engineering department at the University of Waterloo, puts it: “Codes are the worst building you can make without going to jail.”

Canada’s building code addresses soundproofing by requiring the construction components deliver a 50 Sound Transmission Class (STC) in lab tests, while most European codes, where people have lived closely together for centuries, are set higher.

With an STC of 50, you will still hear loud speech, TVs and stereos, says John Humphries, the technical advisor to Toronto‘s Chief Building Official.

And even a few points can make a huge difference in what you can or cannot hear. For example, an STC of 60 would halve the amount of sound you perceive hearing from a 50 STC, virtually the same effect as reducing emissions from a noise source by 10 decibels, Stevens says.

As well, the building code addresses the sound frequencies of voices, not the bass sounds emitted by stereo and TV sound systems — low-frequency sounds that require much more soundproofing than a higher frequency voice.

© The Vancouver Province 2005

Varda Burstyn would like to make light of it but, in truth, there’s just too much of an ecological mess out there to inject much levity.

Burstyn, who has been championing the environment, and getting under the establishment’s skin, for more years than she cares to reveal, is talking about water — specifically Water Inc. (Penguin, $37), her novel.

Now creating ripples on two continents and expected to wash ashore later this year in Spain, Korea and Portugal, Burstyn’s book, which shapes a very real world water crisis into an eco-thriller, could well be a tsunami-in-waiting for wanton water-wasters the world over.

Water Inc. is selling so briskly in Canada, Britain and the U.S. that it’s about to go into its second printing. And it’s starting to consume a lot of Burstyn’s time.

A story about big business-government collusion and a megaproject to pipe water from the Quebec wilderness into drought-stricken parts of the U.S., the novel is becoming a lightning rod for everything that’s wretched about the way we treat our biosphere.

While there’s still as much water on the planet today as there was four billion years ago, it’s what we’re doing with it and to it that gets Burstyn’s goat. As a one-time vice-chair of Greenpeace Canada, she’s made the environment her business for 35 years. And, increasingly, she’s appalled.

Burstyn says the novel is designed as a wake-up call for anyone who doesn’t realize the planet has a water problem — a big one.

Water, and fisheries, have just been identified in a four-year study by 1,300 of the world’s scientists as the most degraded and overused ecosystems in the biosphere. Fresh water supplies, in fact, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment reported in April, “are now so degraded that they are well beyond levels that can sustain existing demands, let alone provide for future needs.”

Add to that the reports from disparate parts of the world: Half the planet’s population lives in countries where water tables are falling and wells are going dry; a third of the world’s population will be seriously short of water by 2025; the UN says water will be one of the major problems of the 21st century and warns there could be water wars within a decade.

Water Inc. is the first in a trilogy that Burstyn will use to flag public interest in the politics and economics of the environment.

Water Inc. has already been likened to stories by techno-thriller writer Michael Crichton, whose novels Jurassic Park, Timeline, State of Fear and Andromeda Strain, among others, have earned him the title “king of catastrophe.”

But Burstyn prefers to call her novel “an antidote” to Crichton’s work. Which may be so. Water Inc. will scare the pants off anyone worried about where their next drink of water will come from — but it’s told to them from a non-technological point of view.

Ironically, even as she was finishing her book, President George W. Bush was threatening to pre-empt it as a piece of fiction, telling world journalists of hopes to pipe water from the Canadian north to relieve drought-stricken midwestern and southern states.

And that’s exactly what Water Inc. envisions: A powerful consortium of businessmen in cahoots with a Quebec cabinet minister to destabilize that province and strike a deal to pipe its water from the north into the U.S. The consortium is headed by corporate visionary William Greele, a billionaire who easily forms a cabal of business leaders.

A Seattle aerospace engineer gets wind of the planned pipeline and a cast of conservationists is quickly assembled to block the pipeline.

This “replumbing of the planet” is already being seen in Quebec, Burstyn says. Just a week ago, the Quebec government gave unanimous approval to the development of public-private partnerships, which could lead to the privatizing of water.

“People are waking up one morning to find a bottling company has arrived and is just sucking the stuff out of the ground.”

© The Vancouver Province 2005

Both the Whistler and Vancouver (pictured here) athletes villages will have community housing components as a post-Olympics legacy.

PEOPLE

“Do something extraordinary for Canada and the world.” With those words VANOC hopes to attract up to 1,200 employees by 2010.

There will also be 3,000 temporary workers and 25,000 volunteers.

VANOC’s team of full-time staff is working in departments such as venue development, logistics planning, sport, finance, legal and accommodation. They’re still looking for bosses for risk management, information security, Internet systems and media relations.

VANOC just appointed Ward Chapin as senior vice-president of technology and systems, bringing the staff number to 90 full-time employees. Says the HSBC alum: “The Games are a huge and unique consumer of technology.”

— Clare Ogilvie

MARKETING & SPONSORSHIP

A fifth “Tier 1” Olympic sponsor in either the oil and gas or automobile category will be announced soon by Vancouver 2010 officials.

“We hope to be through Tier 1 by the end of the summer,” said Dave Cobb, senior vice-president of revenue, marketing and communications.

Signed up so far, for a total of close to $500 million, are Bell Canada — with a $200-million cash, in-kind and athlete package — RBC pledging $110 million as banking sponsor, Hudson’s Bay Co. with $100 million as clothing sponsor, and Rona, with $68 million between cash, “product” and athlete development. Cobb said a seventh category, possibly an airline sponsor, could be added. After that, it’s on to Tier 2 and 3.

— Damian Inwood

sports

Denny and Jay Morrison have always dreamed of competing together in an Olympics. Just over eight months from now, in Turin, the speedskaters from Fort St. John may get a chance to race together at the 2006 Games.

For the first time, the pursuit will be a medal event in both men’s and women’s long track speedskating. And Jay and Denny both have a shot at making the team.

“Being in the same race would be great,” says Denny, who won a gold medal in the 500 metres and a silver in the 1500 metres at the world junior championships in Finland last March. “We both have a good chance to make it. The individual races come first, but the pursuit is a bonus for everyone.”

The pursuit is a timed match race run just like the pursuit in cycling.

— Terry Bell

highway

Despite a delay in work on the Sea-to-Sky Highway in order not to disturb a pair of eagles and their roadside nest, work is 50 per cent done on the first stretch of the $600-million upgrade.

The project is a year ahead of schedule. Most of the current work is concentrated at Porteau Cove and at the strip between Sunset Beach and Lions Bay. There are daily delays.

The project plans to reduce the 300 accidents a year by 30 per cent; travel time between Horseshoe Bay and Whistler should be cut by 15 minutes by completion in late 2009.

The plan is to have four lanes from Horseshoe Bay to Lions Bay, two lanes from Lions Bay to Porteau Cove, three lanes from Porteau Cove to Squamish, four lanes within urban Squamish, and three lanes from Squamish to Whistler.

— Clare Ogilivie/Frank Luba

RAV

Although not technically part of the Olympics, the $1.72-billion Richmond-Airport-Vancouver rapid transit project is supposed to be a boon for residents and visitors during the 2010 event.

Construction won’t begin until August and while there have been holdups, the plan is still to complete the line by late 2009.

Among those holdups is getting an environmental assessment certificate from the province, expected this month. Also expected is signing the long-term agreement with the consortium InTransitBC to design, build, operate, maintain and partially finance the line.

There’s also the matter of pending litigation brought by the DoRAVRight Coalition against the application for an environmental certificate

— Frank Luba

20

The number of languages spoken by VANOC employees

8

Number of home countries on the VANOC team: Austria, Australia, England, Finland, France, India, Ireland and the U.S.

21

VANOC employees who have previous Olympic, Paralympic or Commonwealth Games experience

8

Number of provinces VANOC employees come from. No one hails from New Brunswick or P.E.I.

1712

Days until the lighting of the torch. Which means you still have time to sharpen your luge skills.

The trucks are rolling

2010: There’s lots to do and not much time to do it, so VANOC’s broken ground

Sunday, June 05, 2005

WHISTLER — Whistler and Vancouver’s dream of hosting an Olympic Games is becoming a reality.

In the past few weeks Tonka-yellow construction equipment, their yawning mouths stretched to capacity, have begun to pave the way for Whistler’s most expensive venue, the $110-million Nordic Centre, in the Callaghan Valley.

Meanwhile, in Richmond an RV park is history and plans are under way to shut down River Road so the signature venue of the 2010 Games, the $155-million speed skating oval and community gathering area, can get under way. Construction is set to begin next spring with VANOC contributing $60 million to the project.

“It’s a busy time, no doubt,” says the Vancouver Organizing Committee’s Steve Matheson, whose job it is to get the venues built on time and within the $510-million budget he’s been given.

That’s a daunting task made harder with escalating construction costs.

“We are expecting cost increases over the 2002 bids,” said Matheson, who oversaw billions of dollars worth of development, including General Motors Place, before joining VANOC.

“It is inevitable because of the construction inflation that has happened.”

VANOC is looking at strategies to cope with rising costs including partnering to build, as they did with the Richmond Skating Oval, and pursuing sponsorship deals with companies such as construction supply giant Rona.

“We can get basically anything you can find at a Rona store,” says Matheson. “Certainly sponsorship support in value in kind is going to benefit the venues.” The oval is slated to be done by April 2008.

“They are unbelievable buildings,” says Matheson, admitting the oval has captured his heart. “They are so big and with it sitting on the river next to the airport it is going to be spectacular.”

Whistler’s $55-million Sliding Centre, which will host bobsleigh, luge and skeleton, is also in the initial phases of construction with site preparation set for summer.

Mountain bikers and others on Blackcomb Mountain will find the end of Rolo Coaster trail gone and frequent warning signs alerting mountain users that the area is now a construction zone.

The Sliding Centre will be completed in October 2007 so test events can happen before the Games. Indeed, VANOC aims to have all venues built by 2008 so athletes can practise on them.

VANOC is involved in the construction of seven new venue sites and eight sizable upgrades to existing facilities for the 2010 Games.

This year the Pacific Coliseum will get the first part of its facelift with new seating going in. It should be done for the World Junior Hockey Championship in December. All upgrades to the Coliseum should cost $23 million, with most work under way next year.

Plans to start on the new ice sheets at UBC’s Thunderbird Winter Sport Complex are delayed until next year so local hockey leagues can find new locations to play, says Matheson. Total cost for that venue will be $40.8 million.

Two athletes villages must also be constructed, in Vancouver and in Whistler, which will host the Paralympics from March 12 to 21, 2010. VANOC will contribute $32.5 million to the Whistler village.

The plan is to have the $13-million Whistler Athletes Centre, part of Whistler’s Olympic village, completed by the winter of 2008 so athletes can stay there for test events with the balance of the village finished in 2009. The Vancouver village is also set to be completed in 2009. VANOC will contribute

$30 million towards the construction of the Vancouver village.

Both will have a community-housing component as a legacy.

The other venues:

– BC Place Stadium will host the opening and closing ceremonies.

– GM Place. Olympic ice hockey. Upgrades set to cost $5 million.

– Hillcrest/Nat Bailey Stadium Park. Construction to begin June 2007 on a curling venue built in conjunction with a City of Vancouver community development. VANOC to contribute $28 million.

– Cypress Mountain, for freestyle skiing and snowboarding. Work to start May 2006. Upgrades expected to cost $11 million.

– Whistler Mountain. Site of Olympic and Paralympic alpine skiing. Work to start this summer and expected to cost $23 million.

[email protected]

The new facilities and their construction schedules

SOURCE: VANCOUVER ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

© The Vancouver Province 2005