Last week, the City of Victoria mailed a survey to residents, asking for feedback on its Johnson Street Bridge project.
We have created a survey of our own, which you can print off, fill out, and include in the business-reply envelope that comes with the City’s survey.
Download our survey HERE. (PDF: 119 kb)
City communications staff have said that they welcome feedback on the bridge project. We take them at their word. We believe they should include our survey in the information that Victoria’s councillors will receive before they decide on August 12 whether to rehabilitate or replace the bridge.
But it’s most important to fill out the City’s survey, which is on page 7 of the information package you received in the mail. Here are our suggestions about how to complete it.
Johnson Street Bridge Feedback
This is the crucial part of the survey. It appears the City will total the check marks from the surveys it receives, and that considerations finishing in the “top three” will influence the councillors the most.
If you believe the City should rehabilitate the existing bridge, you should check “Preserve heritage” – and nothing else.
Why not check the others? Unfortunately, every other consideration listed above can be interpreted to favour replacement, if you accept the information presented by the City. We don’t. Here’s why.
LaSalle Causeway Bridge
Construction Costs: The City says it will cost $77 million to replace the bridge without rail, and $80 million to rehabilitate it. We question this estimate for rehabilitation, which has tripled from the $24 million quoted by Delcan in April 2009, and the $35 million quoted by MMM last November.
The new estimate greatly exceeds what other governments have recently paid for rehabilitating similar bridges. This spring, for example, the federal government finished rehabilitating the LaSalle Causeway Bridge in Kingston, Ontario, a Strauss trunnion bascule bridge similar to ours, built in 1917. That rehabilitation involved removing pack rust, replacing and repairing steel where required, grit-blasting the bridge down to the metal to remove its lead paint, and then repainting it. Cost: $3.1 million.
Lefty O'Doul Bridge
Much of the City’s estimated rehabilitation cost is for seismic upgrading. We question how much of it is necessary: although the bridge was not designed to any seismic standard, it was designed to carry trains, and did withstand the largest earthquake ever recorded on Vancouver Island, a 1946 quake of 7.3 magnitude at its epicentre in Courtenay. Seismic upgrading also need not be outrageously expensive: in 1999, San Francisco seismically upgraded its “Lefty O’Doul” bridge, another Strauss trunnion bascule bridge, for $10 million.
A further $15 million of the City’s refurbishment estimate is for upgrading the Blue Bridge to the maximum 8.5 earthquake standard, to make it the “lifeline” bridge to Vic West. The Bay Street Bridge, which carries water and gas mains, and phone and electrical cables, is a better candidate for a “lifeline” seismic upgrade.
Maintenance Costs: The City says it will cost $42 million to maintain the existing bridge for the next 100 years, versus $22 million for a replacement. However, the architect’s design for a replacement “rolling bascule” bridge uses a unique open-wheel lift mechanism, which has rarely been employed elsewhere. It is premature to estimate the maintenance costs for the new bridge until it has been built and operating for several years.
Construction closures or impacts: The City says that rehabilitating the existing bridge will require fully closing it to traffic for 12 months. This needs further examination. The federal government was able to keep Kingston’s LaSalle bridge open to traffic during the eight months it was being repaired. A June 2010 report by Banjar Management examining various rehabilitation options for the Johnson Street Bridge cited only several months of “restricted vehicle, pedestrian, and cycle access,” spread out over three years. The City has not explained why 12 months of full closure is now required. It has also not explained why it cannot do on-site rehabilitation work at night, which would minimize closures and the impact on downtown.
Improved access for cyclists, pedestrians, and other users: Both the rehabilitation and replacement proposals call for improved surfaces and connections for cyclists and pedestrians, which we welcome. The only difference is that replacement includes on-street bicycle lanes. These are important, but we question whether 60 metres of bike lanes warrant the cost of a new bridge.
Improved road approaches on both sides: The replacement proposal will do little to change the existing configuration of traffic on the east side of the bridge; the major change would be the conversion of the west side’s “S-curve” into a straightaway. Some Vic West residents want the S-curve to remain, to calm traffic.
You are, of course, free to check any considerations as you see fit. We’re just checking “Preserve heritage.” If you really want to check three, “Construction costs,” and one of the “access” options would be the next best.
COMMENTS and ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
We hope the above notes will suggest comments for you to add to the rest of the City’s survey. Here are some examples of ones that members of our group will be sending:
2) What comments do you have about the replacement option?
The costs are too high.
I want rail included on this bridge.
3) What comments do you have about the rehabilitation option?
I want a bare-bones, minimum-cost rehabilitation.
I want the City to do rehabilitation work at night to minimize all closures to traffic.
An 8.5 seismic upgrade is unnecessary. The Bay Street Bridge should be the “lifeline” bridge.
4) In moving forward to a referendum, what additional information would you like to receive on the selected project, prior to voting on borrowing?
I want the City to explain how it will pay for all the other facilities and work that Victoria needs. Nearly all of our manageable debt will be consumed by the bridge project.
I want a list of all City properties that have not been seismically upgraded, and an assessment of which ones are most likely to cause casualties in an earthquake.
5) Is there anything you would like to add?
I want you to ask all Victoria residents a direct question about whether they prefer replacement or rehabilitation.
City council should not make an $80-million decision largely on the results of a telephone survey.
The City must receive responses by August 3. Please complete the City’s survey, and our supplementary survey, put them together in the City’s business-reply envelope, and get them in the mail right away!
Thank you for taking the time to provide this feedback to the City of Victoria.
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You said:
“5) …
I want you to ask all members of the public a direct question about whether they prefer replacement or rehabilitation.
City council should not make an $80-million decision based on the results of a telephone survey .”
However it is my understanding that this survey is being mailed to every city resident, or address, whatever. The Registration number on my survey is 03241, so certainly the field is large enough to accommodate us all.
Hi Bill, thanks for your comment. The City survey is being sent to every household, but it does not ask a direct question. Instead, it asks for your “top three” concerns – leaving it up to City Hall to interpret whether you want repair or replacement. I’d rather have them ask all of us a direct, straightforward question: repair or replace?
Wordy and one sided survey. However, I did fill it out and helped others in our building do the same. Many didn’t understand what it entailed.
Personally I believe the survey to be a token gesture on the part of the city anyway, and the information fed to us, conveniently too little and too late. At least they hope! Using the ‘threat’ of closure in 2012 are scare tactics. The Bay St. bridge will never be able to handle the traffic. So let’s make the public panic and make the decision in favor of a new bridge huh?
It makes no sense to me, that a new bridge could cost less or the same as refurbishing one that’s already standing and fits in with the structure and ‘ambiance’ of our city.
I had to walk over it daily for years and always came across tourists and locals alike that were fascinated by it and it’s mechanical works.
It needs to be saved! It’s a unique and a vital link to Victoria as well as it’s past.
The city should have shown more pride in the Johnson Street Bridge and taken care of it’s old bones long before this and getting it ready for it’s 100th birthday.
It’s needed, wanted, a tourist attraction and it’s ours!!!
Great analysis, research and putting things into perspective!
Minor work to bring the JSB to an acceptable standard with bike friendly surfaces, and placing more emphasis on the Bay Street or even a new bridge further up may be more intelligent in the long term, not to mention most sustainable and cost effective.
Perhaps the JSB should be cut off from traffic and made pedestrian and cyclists only, Turned into a tourism detination: Imagine: a farmer’s market and craft fair on a historic property in the middle of the city!
The argument to bring this tried and tested bridge up to latest standards is unrealistic and uncalled for. Many of Vancouver and Victoria’s newest condo towers are built to the NBCC1995 code, while the NBCC2005 is the latest code and has much greater seismic requirements. In otherwords, new buildings don’t even meet the lastest coded for seismic, therefore, why pick selected structures, especially when the safety risk on such a small span is minimal compared to living in a building.
The City could look like a hero on multiple levels by thinking progressive and being realistic.
Thank you for laying out the options so well and your warning that we do not have until 12 August to send input to City Hall.
And, thank you in particular for highlighting your own support for rail on the bridge!
I just hope enough people read this before they fill in their feedback and return it. The City is certainly playing hardball in this latest PR push of theirs.
According to todays Times-Colonist, Mayor Fortin says “For me at this stage, the best option is the one that has the most likelihood to succeed at the referendum”
Repair the bridge to the same M6.5 seismic standards as the Point Ellice Bridge and save the city $15 million dollars, making it the least expensive way to go. Free up the money for all the other important city projects waiting in the wings. This is the option that has the “most likelihood to succeed” at November referendum
Three options for a replacement bridge have been considered, and the consultation process features a rolling bascule bridge chosen by a group of citizens on the basis of artist’s impressions. I question the adequacy of this selection process. Forecasting construction costs in advance of detailed design is prone to error, and fluctuations in cost forecasts for this project illustrate that point. Government departments often call for two alternative designs to be presented in tender documents for substantial contracts. Contractors themselves have difficulty in predicting which is the economic choice, keeping options open until all their subcontract quotations are available. Even then, tenderers don’t all choose the same design. Good fiscal management points to the need for closer examination of comparative costs than that reflected in information made public thus far.
How much would it cost to re-locate the dockyards in the upper harbour so that we didn’t haveto deal with a raisable bridge?
I have been reading with some interest recent developments regarding the fate of the Johnson Street Bridge. As a former resident of Victoria, and now making my home in Kingston ON (which coincidentally also has a similar lift bridge of the Strauss Trunion Bascule type) I note that the path chosen in Kingston was refurbishment rather than replacement. Perhaps the decision in Kingston was made more easily as the Lasalle Causeway Bridge is owned and operated by the Federal Government, thus clearing the city of any responsibility for maintenance and repair. Clearly the costs of repair were in the case of Kingston were orders of magnitude less than replacement.
In the case of Victoria, any new bridge over the gorge would, I presume, be of a lift variety, be considerably more expensive to build than to repair the existing bridge, and introduce new and quite probably greater costs associated with servicing it. But I am sure this is obvious to the citizens of Victoria. What is rather less clear is why the City Council would ignore this option altogether.
Curious that the City of Victoria seems not to have investigated the repair option, especially given that costs associated with refurbishing a nearly identical bridge in a city of similar size handling similar amounts of traffic must have been readily available to its engineers.
http://juniorannex.wordpress.com/2009/01/15/the-bane-of-my-existence/
Wow, I hope the city folk read your comment and look at your site.
I read your web site, but I still like the redevelopment plans. I think that the proposed design would be a nice replacement for the old blue bridge. I guess that we’re on opposite sides of the bridge on this issue.
I’m glad to see your interest in municipal affairs though. So many people don’t even bother to vote anymore.
Why replace the Blue Bridge? It is not the lifeline to the west. How will emergency vehicles cross the bridge when the approaches will be clogged with the rubble from all the surrounding seismically unsound buildings. Add to this all the cars and trucks that are usually in the vicinity and nothing moves.
Putting resources into the Bay St. bridge is a more viable use for the proposed funding. Make the bridge four lanes, seismically stable and improve Bay street and the approaches so that we have an functional east / west arterial road. Then refurbish the Blue Bridge so that public transportation (buses & rail) are the priority.
Don’t miss this opportunity to provide a foundation for the future of Victoria’s infrastructure.
It looks like Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin is exhausted, and hiding from all this brouhaha about the ‘Joseph Strauss Bridge’:
http://gregoryhartnell.wordpress.com/2010/07/31/philistine-dean-takes-vacation-during-johnson-street-bridge-controversy/
The estimated cost to replace the bridge seems very high to me. Has anyone thought of getting an overseas quote for the bridge? I am not absolutely sure this could be done but I am guessing it could be built and then shipped here and lifted into place. The Coastal Class BC ferries were built for about 100 million for each. I would think a bridge could be done for a fraction of the cost even with the additional costs of shipping and craning. I realize this idea is a bit unconventional but when you look at the sophistication required to build a Coastal class ferry at a cost of 100 million and compare that to a simple bridge maybe it is worth taking a look at. I find it puzzling that the estimated cost to replace the JSB is estimated at 80% of the cost of a complete ferry.
[...] to August 3rd, plenty of people have been weighing in with emails, and comments on the website. Our supplemental survey has over 500 downloads – it will be interesting to see how many reach City Hall, and how they [...]
Thank you for the supplementary survey & info – very helpful! I did not receive a mailed survey from the City and will be asking why on Tuesday. Do you know how many were mailed out and what the criteria for choosing households was?
Elizabeth,
Information from the City of Victoria notes 25 000 information packages and surveys were mailed. As there are approximately 45 000 households within the city, it is a good question as to what criteria was used to determine who would receive one, and who would not.
You can phone City Hall at 250-361-0288 or email johnsonstreetbridge@victoria.ca to ask for a survey
We suggest everyone also write or email to the Mayor and all Councillors.
Thank you – and hope you enjoy your long weekend
I find your website and survey overly biased and misleading. You don’t ask the direct question(s) of preference for refurbishment or replacement; the simple option of voting for replacement doesn’t even appear on your survey. Give people all the legitimate facts and options – then give them the democratic choice to vote for either side of the issue (not just your own). After carefully reviewing your website and information provided by the City of Victoria, I have chosen to support replacement of the current blue bridge.
A well-respected Victoria builder, Don Patterson, has his doubts about the ‘information’ the City of Victoria has produced on the fate of Joseph Strauss’ bridge, and says he will ‘be showing his public interest in groups that supply trustworthy information.’
He figures, quite reasonably, that if the City says the bridge will have to be shut down in two years, and the new one will take four years to build, that means in effect, ‘four years minus two years suggests that there will not be a Johnson Street BRidge crossing for two years.’
Read all of Mr. Patterson’s letter, published this morning in the monopoly daily, at the Concerned Citizens’ Coalition weblog:
http://gregoryhartnell.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/don-patterson-on-joseph-strauss-bridge-the-information-the-city-of-victoria-is-supplying-needs-to-be-trustworthy-and-forthcoming/