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Climate Disruption to Cost Billions for BC Highways
12/12/21
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Nov. 11, 2021
Huge efforts underway to make temporary repairs to dozens of destroyed bridges and washouts, but designing and building better gets underway in earnest in 2022
VICTORIA — B.C. was still grappling with last month’s floods when the provincial government issued an invitation to construction and design firms to join in a plan to “build back better.”
“The extreme rainfall events of Nov. 14 and 15 have had major impacts on highways and highway structures throughout the southern Interior and Lower Mainland,” read the Nov. 26 release from the B.C. highway reinstatement program.
Consequently, the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure was “conducting assessments of each impacted area in preparation for repairing compromised highways.”
The reinstatement program was intended to make over three major highway corridors — Highway 1 through the Fraser Valley to Spences Bridge, the Coquihalla from Hope to Merritt, and Highway 8, linking Merritt and Spences Bridge.
Companies were invited to “indicate their interest in and their qualification for” what was shaping up as a sweeping redesign and rebuilding of all three routes.
“The permanent rebuild of Highways 1 and 8 and the Coquihalla will take a long time — there’s no question about it,” Transportation Minister Rob Fleming conceded in that day’s media briefing. “But the planning has already started. We have also gone out to the market and construction firms, to engineering and design firms, with requests for qualifications.
“We are seeking their innovation and expertise to see what they can bring to the table, working with our engineers.”
Though less than two weeks had passed since the floods, the New Democrats had already decided that the highways would be replaced to a higher standard.
“When we rebuild, we will rebuild better than it was,” Fleming told reporters. “There is no question about that.”
Underscoring the point, the invitation to prospective bidders said that “climate change guidelines for design will apply.”
Likewise, designs will be expected to take account of “hydrological conditions” and incorporate “mitigation of rockfall, mudslides, unstable embankments and avalanche hazards.”
This being an NDP government, firms were also reminded to address labour benefits in any work they undertake.
“Labour benefits can include increased opportunities for apprenticeships and training, increased participation by Indigenous groups and groups traditionally under-represented in the construction industry and greater employment opportunities for local residents.”
Those objectives can be incorporated into regular contracts or one of the NDP’s union-favouring community benefit agreements.
“Decisions on how to implement labour benefits for a specific project will be made on a case-by-case basis,” by the government.
Though the highways reinstatement program remains a work in progress, firms were advised to identify their qualifications — experience, resources, technical expertise, and financial wherewithal — to undertake projects in two categories.
Capital A projects would be costed at between $20 million and $50 million. Capital B projects would be those priced $50 million and higher.
How much higher?
“The province has not yet determined which projects will be part of the program and does not have a range of projects greater than $50 million,” replied the ministry.
Firms were also advised not to worry that the province would be scrapping or postponing existing projects in order to get on with rebuilding the three highway corridors.
“The province has no plans to defer or cancel any existing projects,” said the ministry, referring to the existing three-year $7 billion transportation capital plan.
In short, it sounds like the province is headed into Carl Sagan territory — “billions and billions.”
Fleming also expects a major helping hand from the federal government, telling reporters (this was a few days after the throne speech) “we were pleased to see the federal government, as parliament reconvened this week, talking about climate adaptation and building back better.”
Given the apparent size and scope of government ambitions, the initial call drew a lot of interest from the construction, engineering and design sectors.
Some 300 representatives of various firms logged on to a virtual briefing on the project on Nov. 29.
Among other things, they heard how the province intends to move quickly to the construction stage.
They were also advised that “due to the need to restore provincial highway services expediently, financial incentives for improving schedules may be included in the contract.”
The firms that responded to the government’s casting call will be advised later this month whether they passed the audition, thus earning a spot on the list of qualified bidders.
The ministry then hopes to begin soliciting bids for specific rebuilding projects, large and small, early in the new year.
If that sounds rushed, it is.
But the ministry has already made remarkable progress in temporary fixes to the damaged highways, particularly the Coquihalla.
Thirty years ago, the Coq was punched through to the Interior at a cost of $1 billion, an overrun of 50 per cent.
Two weeks ago, Fleming characterized the one-time engineering marvel as a wreck: five bridges gone, 20 stretches damaged or washed out.
Last week, he said it would be late January before it is back in service, and then only to limited one-way truck traffic in some sections.
Then this Thursday he reported “based on the exceptional progress to date and if favourable weather continues to allow us to maintain this pace, we are confident that it could instead reopen in early January.”
Still only for limited truck traffic of course.
But a reminder that where money is no object — and it was that way the first time they built the Coquihalla as well — B.C. roadbuilders can work wonders.
[Top photo: Road repairs are going around the clock at several sites, including these repairs to the Bottletop Bridge on Highway 5, the Coquihalla, where approaches at one end of the twin freeway bridge were wiped out by flooding caused by the Nov. 14-15 atmospheric river. PHOTO BY B.C. MINISTRY OF TRANSPORTATION /B.C. Ministry of Transportation]
