Hundreds of millions of dollars will go to waste with switch to Massey bridge: Experts

This year’s reports show about $30 million a month had been spent until June. At that pace, spending would have topped $700 million by November.

According to those who work on the project, they’ve had no notice to halt work or to slow down. About 200 workers continue to be on the job.

Antweiler said he also came up with an estimate of $700 million spent so far. He said while costs for items such as corridor planning might be salvaged for a bridge, some of the money already spent will be lost.

“There’s no question that we’d be throwing away money,” added Perl.

Work to date has included clearing, construction of temporary access roads, moving utilities, building site boundary fencing and preliminary work for the construction of the tunnel tube segments, as well as setting piling for the tunnel work.

Antweiler noted that because the province didn’t sign a contract with a consortium that did the initial work, and has put the project out to bid again, there will be no penalty for terminating a contract.

However, he said the costliest element is the delay because it will reset everything. That includes having to restart an environmental assessment process and consulting with First Nations.

In 2013, the B.C. Liberals said they would replace the aging four-lane tunnel with a bridge and obtained environmental approval by 2017. Shortly thereafter, the NDP took power, cancelled the bridge project and started examining a tunnel replacement.

Antweiler said switching back to a bridge will add two to four years to the project — delaying completion until 2033 to 2035.

“Any delay is going to be significant because of inflation of construction costs,” said Antweiler.

He added that delays also could jeopardize the federal government’s promised contribution of $3 billion. The feds had promised that money for the tunnel replacement, but said recently it could be applied to a bridge.

Antweiler believes there is an argument for staying the course and not switching.

“It just feels like one side wants to be right and prove the other wrong, as opposed to, ‘Let’s just do proper benefit-cost analysis and decide what’s best on those numbers,’ ” he said.

The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 115 has a few dozen workers on the tunnel replacement. The workers run cranes and heavy equipment.

Bryan Railton, business manager for the union, said there’s been no direction to halt work, and in fact the workforce is expected to increase soon by another 30 workers.

He noted that while some of the work might help a bridge project, there is other work — such as piles that have been driven for the tunnel — that would most likely have to be removed.

Railton said he’s reached out to Doerkson and hopes there can be a discussion soon, as there is a lot of uncertainty and angst among the project workers right now.

He noted that if the tunnel project is shut down, workers will go elsewhere, and with other major infrastructure projects coming on stream, it might be difficult to get them back.

“There’s an opportunity to pull back on this. Let’s sit down. Let’s discuss the concerns. Let’s make a reasonable decision rather than running off the political rhetoric,” said Railton.

ghoekstra@postmedia.com

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