If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.
If the Massey tunnel replacement project is any indication, that seems to be the B.C. government’s approach to transportation infrastructure projects in the province.
British Columbians have seen this movie before.
First, there’s the small matter of cost.
Does anyone actually have a good handle on what the cost of the proposed bridge will be?
On its website, accounting firm KPMG – it has been advising on the project – says it’ll be in the neighbourhood of “$2 billion to $3 billion.” What’s $1 billion between friends?
The government says $3.4997 billion (you read that right).
Given the precision of the government’s estimate, it’s a tad worrisome that the Transportation Ministry was out doing test pile drives this spring.
It might be interesting to see how the geotechnical data used for the $3.5 billion estimate compares with the latest results. No one is chomping at the bit to release them.
After cost comes performance.
Three teams made it to the requests-for-proposals stage.
Flatiron Canada is a member of the Gateway Mobility Solutions team and Kiewit Canada is part of the Lower Mainland Connectors team.
Together they’re responsible for the new Port Mann Bridge. They overshot the $2.4 billion fixed-price contract by $424 million.
Flatiron has had its own problems as a co-contractor on BC Hydro’s $725 million Interior-to-Lower Mainland transmission line, resulting from steel towers brought in from India that “twisted, bent and collapsed.”
SNC-Lavalin and Fluor Canada are part of the Pacific Skyway Partners team.
Fluor was also a member of the Windsor Essex Mobility Group hired by the Ontario government to design and build Windsor’s Rt. Hon. Herb Gray Parkway.
The group was late with the parkway’s delivery, resulting in fines of more than $100,000 a day starting in early 2015.
The delay likely had something to do with the 500 pre-stressed, faulty concrete bridge girders they were required to replace in 2013.
Further down the 401, SNC-Lavalin was giving new meaning to underground, as in parking.
As part of its negotiations to build the McGill University Health Centre, the firm sold the local borough on shifting the reference point for “underground” to a different street with a higher elevation, which is why Montreal today has an “underground parking lot” that stands eight storeys high.
The manoeuvre gave the company a $25 million advantage in its bid. The reference change wasn’t shared with other proponents.
SNC-Lavalin, Kiewit and Flatiron have completed five transportation projects in B.C. with a combined initial estimate of $3.8 billion. Final price tag? $6.5 billion.
With Metro Vancouver and all but one of its mayors giving a thumbs-down to the Massey project, there’s not much public buy-in for it.
So here’s an idea: hit pause.
B.C.’s auditor general, Carol Bellringer, announced last year that her office would conduct a performance audit “to evaluate the quality of evidence to support the decision to replace the George Massey Tunnel.”
If the government’s numbers are all on the up and up, what could it possibly fear from taking a few months to let the auditor general do her thing and report back?
Better a cost overrun avoided than a cost overrun paid out. •
Dermod Travis is the executive director of IntegrityBC.
