Rain, sleet, snow, ice, slush and mud

I was on the road for about 3 hours today, for what normally would be a 1 1/2 hour commute. Delta to Cambie and 12th in Vancouver: 1 hour. Normal time, about 35-40 minutes. An hour there, then a good half-hour to IKEA in Richmond. Normal time: about 15 minutes. Lunch and shopping, then home to Delta, with a side trip to find gas. About an hour and a half, instead of just the half.

And I was lucky, they say; some people were sitting in their cars for over 3 hours at a time.

The weather was not helping; when it was not sleeting, it was raining on the old slush. Or snowing, just to keep the mix of water and ice constant. I spun my tires once, slipped off to the side on a curve once, driving slowly, of course.

But what was really fouling up the traffic was the construction of the RAV line. This is an extension of the present SkyTrain system to connect downtown Richmond and the airport to Vancouver. They're trying to get it done by 2010, in time for the Winter Olympics, so they're tackling all areas at once. This line crosses the Fraser River twice, going under one road bridge, over another, over its own bridge, and tunnelling under the arm just south of downtown Vancouver. In between, it tunnels under Vancouver, from the south end at Marine Drive, all the way to downtown. On my map, that adds up to about 10 kilometres underground (6 miles). Most of this is top-down digging, as in the photo, taken in the centre of what used to be the most landscaped and beautiful of our Vancouver streets, as well as one of the few direct routes to downtown.

At 12th and Cambie, where I was headed this morning, right between City Hall and a heritage school building/modern shopping centre, that tunnelling entails a deep pit under the intersection, one lane traffic all four ways, ramshackle pedestrian walkways and mud. Plenty of mud. And stop-and-go traffic, one car length at a time. My car overheated. So did I.

The worst of it all isn't the inconvenience. That I could tolerate, with a good end in view; better transit options, fewer cars on the roads, less pollution. And a tourist bonanza to boot: that is what the RAV PR is telling us will be the result. But what government project ever accomplished its aims without serious drawbacks?

This one will be no different. For starters, financing. The total cost was supposed to be $1.9 billion in 2003 dollars. Of course, it won't be anywhere close to that figure. Cost overruns always plague our government projects; I would not be surprised to hear that it ends up at double that cost.

Then, they promised minimum impact on businesses. I can already see, along Cambie, the changes in the business community. Smaller stores are gone. Some of them, wiped out completely; work is starting on large-scale construction on their former sites. A mini-mall where I used to shop with my son: now flattened, waiting for the developers. The supermarket at 16th: slated for high-rise condominiums.

They promised benefits to tourism. Here is the entrance to Queen Elizabeth Park, one of Vancouver's most visited tourist destinations.

And, of course, they will have extreme difficulty in finishing on time for the Olympics. To keep up appearances, they will (let me try my hand at crystal-gazing here) cut corners, skimping on details. Essential details. This will not be evident until some 5 years down the road, and will then necessitate them throwing another billion or so down the sinkhole.

To add the final touch to the whole mess, passengers will not flock to the new route to the tune of 100,000 riders a day. On-going costs will go up. The squeaky, howling wheels on the old trains will finally need replacing; the new trains will not operate as consistently as expected. The system will start to lose money on its first day of operation and will never pay its way.

Call me a pessimist. I call myself a realist. Or just old. I've been here before.