Despite improvements to a number of well-travelled Lower Mainland roads and bridges, some in the logistics industry still view trucking routes and highway infrastructure as “acute” problems, according to a new transportation study released late last month.
Surface Transportation Annual Review 2014 highlights three broad logistics industry topics: the economic outlook for 2014, the performance of B.C.’s ports and transportation system and the future priorities of management.
Of the many questions asked about each subject area – questions ranged from customer satisfaction with the price of tug and barge services to the anticipated economic impact of Canada’s impending free trade deal with the European Union – the issue that ranked the worst among respondents was “the poor quality of local trucking routes.”
The report was published by Victoria-based Wave Point Consulting and BC Shipping News magazine. Its author, Darryl Anderson, told Business in Vancouver that the responses used in his report were collected just prior to the opening of the South Fraser Perimeter Road in December – a $1.3 billion, 40-kilometre expressway that connects Deltaport to 176th Street in Surrey, intended to reduce traffic around the bustling port.
The South Fraser Perimeter Road will help goods movement in the region, as will an expanded Port Mann Bridge, but Anderson said more is needed. For example, the South Fraser Perimeter Road does little for warehouses awaiting shipments in cities such as Richmond.
“This is a long-festering issue,” said Anderson, a principal at Wave Point Consulting. “The mood of the industry is that while a number of developments have been initiated, there hasn’t been a tremendous amount of progress.”
Projections for increased Port Metro Vancouver (PMV) container traffic and the region’s population growth compound the problem.
PMV forecasts a tripling of container traffic by 2030, and although only a small portion – nearly 7% – of the containers handled by PMV are loaded onto trucks, more containers will mean more trucks on the road.
TransLink projects that 80% of the region’s population growth will be in urban areas, which will put even more pressure on busy roads. To that end, TransLink is developing a goods movement plan that will be included as an update to the transit authority’s Regional Transportation Strategy completed last summer.
Longer trips mean less money for truckers. Philip Davies, owner of Davies Transportation Consulting and co-author of the report with Anderson, said independent truckers are often paid by the trip. The more they wait, either at a terminal or in traffic, the fewer trips they make.
“When there are infrastructure challenges, it only compounds the economic issues faced by truckers,” said Davies.
The Lower Mainland’s trucking industry, which transports almost all of the food and consumer goods in the region, now spends 30% more time completing each trip, according to data in a British Columbia Trucking Association (BCTA) study. That increase costs the economy $750 million annually.
Louise Yako, the BCTA’s president and CEO, said her association has been working with PMV to establish longer and more predictable terminal hours so some truckers can potentially complete their deliveries around rush hours.
“Occasionally, if container traffic is high, the port will open for extended afternoon hours. For a period of time last year, one terminal was open on Saturday. Extended gate hours are being offered on an as-needed basis, but we are beginning to push on those hours. In the future, the trucking industry and their customers certainly need predictability as to when those hours are going to be offered.”
Yako added that she hopes the South Fraser Perimeter Road will improve the statistics published in her organization’s report.
Other trucking-related projects underway in the region include a road and rail overhaul near Powell Street and the Low Level Road project in North Vancouver.
Repeated requests for comment from TransLink about its goods movement plan could not be accommodated by deadline. •
With BIV files
