Archive for August 2015
Adrienne Carr’s Letter to the NEB
This letter showed up in my email inbox this morning. I do not know what other media this may have been sent to. I hope it is circulated widely – it certainly deserves to be. Many people have decided to walk away from this process in disgust since it is so obviously biased. Adrienne gives her reasons for staying the course. Like her, it seems to me highly unlikely that they will pay the slightest attention.
The original is posted with a Green Party of Vancouver heading
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Dear Stephen, Earlier today, I submitted my official Letter of Comment to the National Energy Board (NEB) Review Panel on Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion proposal, urging the NEB to turn down this reckless proposal that threatens our economy, our quality of life and our environment, both locally and globally. I would like to share my letter with you below: — I am participating in this hearing with trepidation. I have lost faith in the National Energy Board in general, and in your hearing on the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project in particular. Failure to consider the broader impacts that this project will have on greenhouse gas emissions is unconscionable and tragic in the light of scientifically-verified and rapidly accelerating global warming (think of the droughts, fires and heat waves in BC and Canada this summer). Considering the vast quantities of fossil fuels that the proposed Kinder Morgan Trans-Mountain pipeline expansion project is intended to deliver over its lifetime, its negative impacts on carbon emissions are relevant and are of both Canadian and global significance. Besides not weighing the overriding climate consequences of the project, your board has done much to limit discussion by not allowing verbal cross examination of witnesses by interveners and by siding with the company’s decision to not fully reveal pertinent information about spill clean up preparedness. Your decision to allow Kinder Morgan to withhold such information is particularly egregious given that authorities in Washington State—but not Canada—have been given the information. Such actions contribute to making this hearing a sham. The public has good reason to be cynical. Like many, I believe that no matter what I or anyone else presents to you at these hearings, you are going to approve the project. How tragic for democracy. Notwithstanding the frustrations I express above, I cannot boycott this hearing. I feel that it is my duty and responsibility to act in whatever way I can to protect the interests the citizens of Vancouver—whom I serve as a City Councillor—and my children and those in the future who will have to live with the decisions being made today. Here are my comments for your thoughtful consideration. I was born in Vancouver, am married and have two grown children who live in Vancouver, too. I own a condo in Vancouver’s West End, a few blocks from English Bay and Stanley Park. My husband and I chose to invest here because of its proximity to the beaches that I played on daily every summer as a child, and the globally-reknown seawall and park that we use regularly. On a personal level, my quality of life and my property value would be negatively impacted should a spill of diluted bitumen occur either during transport in our harbour or at Westridge Terminal. Both as a Geographer (MA, UBC) and as a former member of the Executive Team at Western Canada Wilderness Committee, which participated in the clean-up of the 1988 bunker C oil spill from a barge off Washington State that fouled some of the beaches in Clayoquot Sound, I understand the potential of tides and currents to spread an oil spill and how difficult it is to clean up even only a small percentage of it. Perhaps fifteen percent can be recovered under ideal conditions. The rest persists over many years, with negative impacts on water, marine life, shorelines, and beaches. I understand, too, the disastrous negative socio-economic impacts that a spill can have. As a co-author of the Globe 90 Sustainable Tourism Strategy and former lead campaigner with the Wilderness Committee, I have expertise in the field of eco-tourism, which relies on maintaining a pristine natural environment. As Vancouver’s first elected Green Party city councilor (re-elected at the top of the polls in 2014) I am deeply concerned about the potential impacts—both short and long-term—of an oil spill on the health of Vancouver citizens and on our city’s reputation and economic well-being. Our local economy is highly dependent on a thriving tourism industry. The long term impacts of a spill—especially of thick, heavy bitumen which sinks to depths where clean-up is virtually impossible—are now well known after the Kalamazoo River spill in Michigan which is still not cleaned up. Vancouver is striving to be the world’s Greenest City. This goal will be unachievable if we become the West Coast’s major Tar Sands oil port. The danger of a spill is real. The near tripling of the capacity of the Westridge Terminal would mean an estimated 10 tankers a week: 520 tankers a year that must pass through the Second Narrows in Burrard Inlet, what is considered by many the riskiest oil tanker passage in the world. The big tankers carrying 500,000 and 700,000 barrels of bitumen must leave at high tide. At high tide there are only about 2 metres of draft under the keel. The waters in this narrow passage are swift and turbulent and the tide drops quickly. There is no room for error, but we all know that human error cannot be full eliminated. The risks are too high to allow this project to move forward. Those risks were brought home to me in April of this year when the MV Marathassa grain carrier spilled about 2,700 litres of bunker fuel in English Bay, just offshore from Vancouver’s Stanley Park. The spill was first noticed by a recreational sailor. It took 13 hours for our city to be officially informed of the spill. Small releases continued from April 8 to April 13—five days—until the point of leakage was finally identified. The Coast Guard and Department of Fisheries and Oceans did not have any scientists on staff to sample the waters and wildlife for contamination. In the absence of government scientists, sampling was independently undertaken by scientists engaged by the Vancouver Aquarium. The City of Vancouver also engaged experts to scientifically monitor contamination effects on the environment. The oil dispersed to beaches in Vancouver and to the north shore of Burrard Inlet where clean-up efforts began on April 10. It is still unknown how much of the oil sank to the ocean bottom. As a member of Vancouver City Council I asked the city staff reporting to us on the Marathassa spill whether or not there was a multi-agency integrated oil spill emergency response plan for our coast. I was told that, previous to the Marathassa spill, staff had inquired about such a plan, but none had been forwarded to the city. In dealing with the spill, they were not aware of such a plan. A few weeks later I attended a meeting of the Lower Mainland Local Government Association that was focused on emergency planning. I asked representatives of Port Metro Vancouver and of IMPREM (Integrated Partnership for Regional Emergency Management) whether an integrated multi-agency marine spill emergency response plan exists. I was told “no”. This is not acceptable. The City of Vancouver is responsible for the safety, health and well-being of our residents. The completely inadequate response to the relatively small Marathassa spill, raises huge concerns about the risks, lack of emergency response preparedness and potentially devastating impacts of the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion project. This project should not be approved. The opposition to this project is overwhelming. It includes all the First Nations surrounding Kinder Morgan’s Westridge Terminal. Based on the literally thousands of conversations I have had with local citizens and the results of the November 2014 local election in which the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project became a key issue, with those opposed now forming a majority on Vancouver City Council, I believe opposition to this project includes a clear majority of Vancouver residents. They have nothing to gain and everything precious to our city’s quality of life to lose if this project is approved. Please consider my comments, and turn this project down. Respectfully submitted, (signed) Adriane Carr |
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Green Party of Vancouver · 207 W Hastings St, 403, Vancouver, BC V6B 1H7, Canada This email was sent to Stephen Rees |
More dross about the viaducts
I am quite sure that none of what I write on this blog is of any surprise to my regular readers. The purpose of this post is simply to host an important piece of research which clearly has had no impact whatever in this part of the world. Oddly enough I am now able to offer you the complete pdf version of the publication because it has been used to support the case of the removal of the Gardiner East expressway viaduct in Toronto.
The Vancouver Courier has an article by Mike Howell who cites Ian Adam to support the contention that somehow the removal of the viaducts east of downtown will be a disaster and somehow this inevitability has escaped the attention of those currently responsible for traffic management in the area.
Ian Adam, who retired in 2008 as the assistant city engineer of streets and structures, said he believes the loss of the viaducts will create more traffic congestion in Chinatown, Gastown and nearby areas.
“Anybody who thinks you can take down two major viaducts like that, which handles 60,000 people a day and a thousand heavy trucks a day — and not have some impact — they’ve got to be dreaming in Technicolor,” said Adam, who once held the position of what is now called director of transportation. “I would say leave them up. They’re a $100-million asset that’s doing a job.”
This is a common theme with the mainstream media. When the Vancouver Sun reporter Jeff Lee covered the recent SFU City Conversation on the Removal of the Viaducts he made a huge effort to chase down Marguerite Ford, a long retired NPA Councillor who has no faith in traffic engineers. She is convinced that they do not understand how traffic works and that things will get worse, although she says she is not against removing the viaducts.
Both Ian Adam and Marguerite Ford are unaware of the research done in many places where traffic lanes have been reduced, freeways closed, viaducts removed – all around the world – and somehow the traffic adapted. I got interested in this phenomenon when I lived in London and the venerable Albert Bridge had to be closed to vehicular traffic for safety reasons. The traffic simply adapted, congestion did not get worse, and life went on. Phil Goodwin was a colleague of mine at the GLC’s Department of Planning and Transportation and went on to a distinguished academic career. He was interested in how traffic models needed to be adapted to become more realistic. Because they have no way to forecast either induced traffic – trips that appear on the network because of additional capacity (a new freeway or a new bridge) – or disappearing traffic – trips that no longer are made when a network loses capacity.
Here is the abstract
Reallocating roadspace from general traffic, to improve conditions for pedestrians or cyclists or buses or on-street light rail or other high-occupancy vehicles, is often predicted to cause major traffic problems on neighbouring streets. This paper reports on two phases of research, resulting in the examination of over 70 case studies of roadspace reallocation from eleven countries, and the collation of opinions from over 200 transport professionals worldwide. The findings suggest that predictions of traffic problems are often unnecessarily alarmist, and that, given appropriate local circumstances, significant reductions in overall traffic levels can occur, with people making a far wider range of behavioural responses than has traditionally been assumed. Follow-up work has also highlighted the importance of managing how schemes are perceived by the public and reported in the media, with various lessons for avoiding problems. Finally, the findings highlight that well-designed schemes to reallocate roadspace can often contribute to a multiplicity of different policy aims and objectives.
The original citation is Cairns, S; Atkins, S; Goodwin, P; (2002) Disappearing traffic? The story so far. P I CIVIL ENG-MUNIC , 151 (1) 13 – 22.
Here is the full text as a pdf Disappearing traffic the story so far which you can download
Both Adams and Ford appear to believe that the number of trips on a network is absolute. That any change to the network must therefore accommodate all the trips currently being made – and, by extension, any forecast of future trip making. Typically, models used to predict travel have also fallen into the same trap – leading to the never ending cycle of predict and provide which has only ever produced more vehicle trips, and worse congestion. The gravity model treats motor vehicle trips as though they flow like water, and thus have to be accommodated to avoid flooding. In reality traffic behaves more like a gas that expands and contracts to fill the space available.
You also need to bear in mind that the engineers responsible have also observed that traffic into downtown Vancouver has been declining, and the network they are proposing can easily accommodate all of the current trips with some slight delay for cars entering the downtown during the morning peak from the east. Among the “behavioural responses” which will occur, once the viaducts have been removed are trips will be made at different times of day, trips will be combined – so that more than one errand can be completed in the same journey – trips will divert to other equivalent destinations and some trips will switch modes. There will be a few people who decide to stop driving their single occupant vehicle and try the same trip by walking, cycling or using transit. Many trips in this city are short enough to be accomplished in this way, and most people who try the alternatives will prefer them to driving. This is already apparent here, as elsewhere. Though obviously 70 case studies across eleven countries were not enough to convince some. Though this stuff is also really old: March 2002 publication. There have been many places since then that have followed this advice and found that it worked. We will too. Actually, we have. Point Grey Road and the Burrard Bridge ought to be enough evidence – even if all those protected bike lanes downtown which seem to be working quite well too are not convincing either.
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