ROTHENBURGER – Bridging the gap or, a tale of three bridges

SPENT QUALITY TIME with me and myself this morning, contemplating the state of the city and the world. Listening to a bit of Fox News (I like to do that once in a while to hear how the other half thinks), CBC, CNN, Hits of the 60s on satellite radio.

Saw some scenery I’ve never noticed before on the drive to town.

Worst traffic jam ever. The backup started near Westmount. Took me from 7:30 until quarter to 8 to get from there onto the Halston bridge. Stop and go the entire way. That’s when I figured I’d better call the mayor and let him know I was going to be late for coffee.

“Holy cow!” he answered, marvelling at the gridlock as he attempted to make it across the Overlanders Bridge.

Me, I eventually made it out onto the Yellowhead but never made it above 15 clicks as we all crawled painfully toward town. After the Mount Paul turnoff, things sped up temporarily until the approach to the Sun Rivers intersection.

Eventually making it into the downtown core, I wedged into a single parking spot a couple of streets up only to find there were several open spots on Victoria Street. (“That’s because everybody’s still on the other side of the river in traffic,” was Reid Hamer-Jackson’s explanation.)

When he came along the sidewalk to the coffee shop in which I was waiting, he was with a couple of folks who were in lively conversation with him. It had taken him a few minutes to walk the block or two from the Wednesday farmer’s market because people kept stopping to talk to him or ask for selfies.

Our first topic of conversation was, of course, the current traffic nightmare. On feeder streets and out on the highway, patience isn’t just a virtue, it’s a necessity. Downtown is populated with Detour and No Entry and Go This Way Not that Way signs — OK, I made up the last one but it’s not far off the mark.

The mayor thinks the rush-hour problem could be solved with some extra flaggers for an hour during the rush. Put one at either end of the Overlanders and at pinch points on Halston, and a lot of it could be resolved, he says.

The other thing is the Red Bridge, the lack of which is contributing mightily to the driving squeeze. He’s totally onside about the potential for mass-timber construction, which he says could result in a replacement being completed inside of two years.

The need for a new bridge is obvious for commerce, cultural and convenience reasons. And there’s a big cost to not having the bridge, he points out — the distance vehicles of all kinds, especially supply trucks, have to drive to go over to the east side of the river via the Blue Bridge or Halston Bridge and then cut in to Mount Paul.

“Just think how much it would save the environment,” he says in reference to the fossil fuel being burned.

But the public has to become aware of its virtues and begin talking about it so the politicians in Victoria pay attention. As you may have read previously in this space, mass timber is as good as or superior to steel and concrete in terms of fire resistance, cost and speed of construction.

It could be built to modern standards of width and load bearing, and be beautiful to boot.

So why doesn’t he put a motion in front of council to request that the provincial government give serious consideration to mass timber? Not going to happen, says the mayor.

“If I put something in front of City council it would go nowhere.”

Point taken. Still, some way of pushing the matter into the public’s consciousness is needed, and now might be the opportune time given the traffic situation.

One sure way to convince the powers in Victoria to take mass timber seriously is to get Tk’emlúps te Secwe̓pemc leadership onside. The bridge is as important to the Band as it is to the City, and TteS has a lot of political clout.

So Hamer-Jackson has been reaching out to Kúkwpi7 Chief Rosanne Casimir and Band councillors. The Band hasn’t come out publicly yet but hopefully that could happen soon.

If TteS, City council, MLA Peter Milobar, the public and local business and service organizations get behind mass timber, we could have that new bridge in a couple of years instead of several. And it would be a beautiful feature, mimicking the old Red Bridge if that’s what we wanted. Or perhaps, a more modern design but much more interesting and beautiful than typical concrete and steel.

“So…..” said the mayor, summing up.

“Got it,” I said. “Red Bridge. Mass Timber.”

Mel Rothenburger is a former regular contributor to CFJC-TV and CBC radio, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and a Webster Foundation Commentator of the Year finalist. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor.  He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.