The controversial Bear Mountain ("Spencer Road") Interchange project has been "abandoned," WTF Langford? has learned.Right: the construction site in happier days, when construction was happening. Times Colonist photo.
The new TransCanada Highway connector demolished a rare karst cave and garry oak meadows after enduring a mock counter-petition, a ten-month long tree-sit protest, and a massive raid by dozens of RCMP officers that evicted a handful of interchange opponents in 2008.
Apparently, the situation has deteriorated since then. The Interchange Consultation blog reports on this continuing tale of fail.
Work Grinds to a Halt, a Full Year Behind Schedule
The Spencer Road Interchange (also known as the Bear Mountain Interchange) was scheduled for completion in May 2009. As of August 2009, it appears abandoned. All the heavy equipment, construction crews, and security personnel were withdrawn from the construction site in early July. Gravel roadbeds and a concrete overpass sit unfinished and empty.
Observers suggest that the city of Langford has already spent its $10 million line of credit from TD Bank, and that no money is forthcoming from the property developers the interchange would serve. Meanwhile, Langford's application for a Building Canada Fund grant for the interchange and the connecting road to Bear Mountain Resort appears to be in limbo. In the Goldstream Gazette, MP Keith Martin complains that he can't get a response from Ottawa about taxpayer funding for the project.
The city's application for federal and provincial grant money is controversial. Critics note that the project was billed as "100% funded by the developers" both in verbal promises to voters and in bylaws adopted by the city.
The most serious charge dogging the grant application is that the funding would amount to a cash gift to the developers, a practice forbidden by the Local Government Act. Any borrowing to cover the municipal portion of the grant would also be subject to a referendum by petition. Langford circumvented this step in 2008 by declaring the interchange a "Local Area Service" that would be paid for by the property owners who stand to benefit. However, the city can't have it both ways. Either the interchange is a Local Area Service and funded by the developers, or it is a public-funded project and the voters can approve or reject the spending in a referendum.
More infrastructure grant awards are expected to be announced in September, 2009. Original construction schedule here.
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Witnesses say the bridge has already been tagged a couple times - with anti-sprawl graffiti. Tsk! Kids these days.
Filed under: bridge to nowhere, bailout, cash gift, protest, Langford f----ups, blah blah blah, we told you so.
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Ah,too bad. I was looking forward to a quicker trip up there to golf and visit with my rich friends @ BM. I guess I'll have to drive the side route now, oh well, more gas used I guess, that won't be good for the environment.
ReplyDeleteI hope Len will still host those swanky parties at his beautiful home atop BM. I wonder how many people are against BM because of jealousy of Len, they mask it with hate and find other reasons to object to the project. Ah yes, Len is such a racists...LOL
Anon seems to be confusing jealousy with critical thinking. Try it sometime, honey. :)
ReplyDeleteAnd, learn how to spell....LOL!
ReplyDeleteI can't tell if anon is being facetious here. DOES Len invite you to swanky parties? DO you regularly golf at BM? Cause 99% of Langford residents DO NOT benefit from said swanky houses and golf. 99% of us are down here in dogpatch, just trying to deal.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what a swanky BM party is like, anyway. Looking out over all that pre-prepared, abandoned desolation while elbowing with the fifty neighbours you DO have in your front yard owing to the mandatory 5 inch spaces between houses. I dunno. I feel a lot richer down here by the lake than I would up on that mass gravesite/golf green.