Image Credit: BC Minister of Transportation

By James Peters

Trans Canada Twinning

Kamloops MLA says Trans Canada twinning near Chase will be more money for less highway

Jul 3, 2020 | 5:42 PM

CHASE, B.C. — The MLA for Kamloops-South Thompson says the latest details on the Trans Canada Highway improvements through the Chase area show the government is delivering less highway for more money.

Todd Stone says a discussion with Transportation Minister Claire Trevena last week confirmed that the twinning project from Hoffman’s Bluff to Jade Mountain will cost $260 million — or about $61 million more than initially estimated.

WATCH: (Video Credit: BC Ministry of Transportation)

Stone adds that Trevena revealed the project is about half the size that was originally planned.

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“I was absolutely shocked when I put the direct question to the minister, detailing what my current understanding of this project was, that she confirmed that, yes indeed, we’re going to get five kilometres of four-laning not 10,” Stone told CFJC Today. “We’re going to get one full access interchange not two, we’re not going to get any access improvement’s at Mattey’s Road Jade Mountain, but we are going to pay $61 million more for a project that’s being delivered three years later than it needed to be.”

The government announced May 1 that the Chase Creek Road to Chase West portion of the project had gone to tender.

Stone says a three-year delay and the NDP government’s Community Benefits Agreement framework have contributed to the increased cost.

“The community benefits agreement requirement, depending on whose numbers you use, is adding anywhere from eight per cent to upwards of 20 per cent to the cost of a major infrastructure project for no added benefit to the taxpayers whatsoever,” said Stone.

“The minister of transportation, Claire Trevena, she could have made the decision in July of 2017 to put that tender out. That segment and the next segment, by the way, would be done by now. We would be using that four-lane section and we would be on to the third component.”

Stone says the increased cost on its own doesn’t surprise him, but the decreased scope of the project is troubling.

“The minister did acknowledge, when the news release went out a number of weeks ago when this project first went to tender, that there had been a 30 per cent increase to the cost of the project. That’s a $61 million increase. But never, in my wildest dreams, did I think that, for $61 million more, were we going to get five kilometres less of highway and one less full access interchange.”

Details of the project can be found here.