Public toll bridge operators in the Lower Mainland would have to win the lottery six times in a year to make up for multi-million dollar losses that may have taxpayers on the hook.
The Port Mann Bridge and the Golden Ears Bridge together lost more than $127 million last year, as drivers continued to avoid the tolls by taking free routes instead.
“The deficit and debt albatross for both gets larger and larger,” said Dermod Travis of the public watchdog Integrity BC.
The proposed 10-lane toll bridge to replace the George Massey Tunnel could also break the bank, he said, predicting a similar pattern would result in costing the province hundreds of millions more than advertised.
“The government is going from one boondoggle to another boondoggle with the same people in charge,” Travis said.
The bridge’s annual losses equate to about the amount B.C. plans to spends on affordable housing over the next two and a half years, Travis added. It's also about 2.5 times the amount needed each year to kickstart the Lower Mainland's transit plan.
To understand the scale of these losses it helps to look at Thursday’s record setting $21 million online lottery win by Nanaimo man Bill Laharty.
“It’s a lot of money, more money than I’ll ever need,” said Laharty, whose work on hydro poles earned him the nickname “Hole digger Bill.”
The holes the Golden Ears Bridge is digging are even bigger. The span lost more than twice what Laharty won last year, cutting into TransLink’s bottom line to the tune of $45 million.
And the Port Mann Bridge lost almost four times that lottery win, at $82 million, which will add to the debt of the Transportation Investment Corporation, which is owned by the province.
Since they were built, records show the bridges have collectively lost more than half a billion dollars. Operators would have to win Laharty’s prize some 26 times to get rid of that debt.
The problem is that only about half the drivers that the province were counting on actually take the bridges.
In 2015, 34,000 vehicles per day crossed the Golden Ears Bridge – some seven per cent more than last year, a TransLink spokesperson said. In 2016, TransLink says they’re seeing 36,000 vehicles a day. But that’s only about half what the bridge needs to break even.
The trend is up at the Port Mann Bridge, whose operator, the Transportation Investment Corporation, said it’s seen six per cent more drivers than last year.
The bridges were supposed to lose some money in the first years of their operation. For example, the Port Mann was expected to lose $28.3 million in 2012. But the Port Mann has lost some $145 million more than was planned.
B.C. Premier Christy Clark was bullish on the bridge’s prospects when reached at an announcement Friday.
“We always knew, we never thought it would be at a maximum capacity or maximum revenue by now,” Clark said. “Over the term that we’re looking at with the tolls, I think we’re going to make our goals on that.”
Clark included the planned Massey replacement in the province’s Climate Leadership Plan, arguing a new bridge would reduce idling by cars.
However, Mayors have worried that the bridge would only increase idling by cars at the next bridge along the 99 Highway, the Oak Street Bridge.
The province’s environmental assessment for the project predicted toll-avoiding drivers would cram the Alex Fraser Bridge, which could lead to idling there.
The Georgey Massey Bridge is slated to cost $3.5 billion – up from the $3 billion cost when the project was announced in 2013.
Travis says taxpayers should expect the George Massey Bridge to cost a lot more, pointing at the Champlain Bridge replacement in Quebec, which is expected to cost $4.2 billion.
“They’re going to be north of $4.2 billion. It defies common sense to think you can build a 10 lane bridge that hasn’t started construction for $3.5 billion,” he said.
