Your bridges go here...

It's a new year, a somewhat new political crew on council, a new mayor and an old dream.

Picking up the Tsimshian Access Project torch from former Mayor and would be MLA Herb Pond, Mayor Jack Mussallem has once again put the prospect of a bridge to Digby Island and road beyond to Lax Kw'alaams high on the municipal wish list.
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Mussallem, joins the long list of local politicos who has the dream of a bridge over the harbour as his political goal, but while somewhere in the offices of 3rd Avenue are probably those original blueprints for when the project was first floated, the financial picture of the project certainly has changed quite a bit from the heady days of economic stability on the North coast.
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In order for an infrastructure item such as the bridge to go forward the city would need to provide one third of the required monies under existing funding formulas, something that seems rather out of reach considering the recent concerns over the Alaska Ferry Dock and many other local roads, sewers and such that need immediate attention.

In order to keep the long cherished dream of countless political types alive, Mussallem has recruited NDP MP for Skeena-Bulkley Valley, Nathan Cullen in the bid to put some pavement down towards the Tsimshian peninsula. Mr. Cullen recently conducted a tour of the Northwest with a stop in Prince Rupert where Mayor Mussallem offered up some suggestions on how he could be of assistance to the project.

Every political season needs something to shoot for. For Prince Rupert, the city of rainbows as we're occasionally known as, it seems that the much discussed bridge will remain the pot of gold at the end of that political rainbow.

A selection of a few of the past Podunkian items on the access project:

They say the road to an election is paved with…. Good intentions and maybe a bit more pavement

Floating the fixed link again

Prince Rupert brings Gateway and transportation hopes to UBCM

By pass or bridge, where will the support go?

City wants to drive-on road dream
Tsimsian Access project is top priority of the new city council
By George T. Baker
The Daily News
Monday, January 19, 2009
Page one

The city is making its priority number one the Tsimshian Access Project.
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In a letter released to the local media by Mayor Jack Mussallem, Mussallem is asking Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP Nathan Cullen to pressure Ottawa to provide money for the much talked about, little-acted-upon Tsimshian Access Project (TAP).

Mussallem said the key to getting the project going was a change in the way grants funding opportunities are made and the criteria to fulfill them.

"The difficulty for the City of Prince Rupert to realize many of its civic projects is to find its own portion of matched funding required by various federal infrastructure grant programs, which in many ways can be an upwards of one-third allotment," wrote Mussallem.
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The major benefits from implementation of the TAP includes connecting the communities of Port Simpson and Metlakatla to Prince Rupert and to the provincial highway system and greater access to Digby Island for the Prince Rupert airport.

The TAP has been talked about by local leaders for the better part of a decade but has not been anywhere close to becoming a reality.
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While the provincial government has indicated to local politicians that it would be supportive and interested in funding their portion of the project, the federal government has not been nearly as warm to the idea.

Under current rules, if the city wants TAP to go ahead it will need to come up with one-third of the price tag, which the city does not have.

"For financially strapped communities, this is a significant problem and one that causes poorer communities to be left behind with increasingly poorer and decaying infrastructure," Mussallem continued in his letter.

Infrastructure was one of the main focuses of Cullen's Riding Tour on the Economy (see main story above) and in that focus group, Mussallem could be found explaining his points and advising Cullen on what he can do to help out the community.

Floating the fixed link again

Normally it’s Mayor Herb Pond that is the one making political hay from the development of a bridge between Prince Rupert, the airport and then a road on to Metlakatla and Lax Kw’alaams (Port Simpson), but this week it’s the regions MLA who is asking the Liberal government about its dedication to the concept.

North Coast MLA, Gary Coons issued a press release last week asking some pointed questions about the status of the much discussed but slow to develop transportation conduit for the north coast. So far of the many suggestions on improving transportation between Prince Rupert and the First Nations villages only the Lax Kw'alaams ferry and the Tuck island road have been introduced to the north coast, the road considered a part of the overall plan for the fixed link project.

The bridge, the big money item has long been the staple of local and provincial election campaigns, at one point making progress to the sketch phase, which showcased a bridge that looked to rival Vancouver’s Lions Gate bridge in its scope though certainly not in its traffic load.

It was recently featured in an overview of potential "Gateway" projects for British Columbia, pegged at a cost of 72 million dollars ( in 2006 dollars) the synopsis of the project appeared on page 55 of the final report for the Situational Analysis of
Projected Asia-Pacific Gateway Investments

The prospect of a fixed link was first floated back when the city’s population was trending towards 20,000 residents, since that time the population has worked its way downwards with the decline of the local economy, making the prospect of the bridge a rather far away item on the wish list.

Yet hope springs eternal, and the prospect of the province linking in with federal monies to link Prince Rupert with Lax Kw’alaams, may yet provide cause to dust off the sketches and seek out a route for some black top.

While we are still a good six months away from the municipal election and a year away from the next provincial one, it would appear that the “link” is going to be one of the key planks for politicians everywhere on the North coast. It was popular last time and should make for a steady diet of what could soon be as soon as this November.

The Daily news featured the story as their front page item in Tuesday’s paper.

COONS AND POND EAGER TO SEE TSIMSHIAN ROAD DOESN’T STALL
Local politicians keep up pressure on ministers and premier over road
By Kris Schumacher
The Daily News
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Pages one and three

A project that would connect Kaien Island to Digby Island the Tsimshian Peninsula has been in the works for several years now, but North Coast MLA Gary Coons says it is yet to get the attention it deserves.

The Tsimshian Peninsula Fixed Link Project was originally proposed as a project that would connect Prince Rupert to the Digby Island airport and on to the Villages of Metlakatla and Lax Kw’alaams by way of bridges.

Because the airport and First Nations communities are currently only accessible by water, Coons believes the project is vital to the economic development of the region while each of the communities works toward becoming increasingly viable and self-reliant.

Last week, Coons asked ministers tough questions about the status of the project, for which a memorandum of understanding covering the design process has already been completed by the provincial and federal governments, the City of Prince Rupert and the two bands.
“The Mayor of Prince Rupert, Herb Pond, has called the infrastructure investment “too practical to ignore,” and I think he is correct,” said Coons in a letter to Economic Development Minister Colin Hansen and Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon.

“The outlying villages in the Tsimshian Peninsula need a reliable transportation corridor if economic development is ever going to become a reality in this area.”

During his recent visit to Prince Rupert to announce more than $200,000 in funding for improvements to Mariner’s Park and for building relationships with Asian cities, B. C, Premier Gordon Campbell spoke about the status of the Tsimshian Peninsula project and whether the province had any plans to move it forward.

“We talked about it four or five years ago and it’s not a new project, but it’s a question of where we put the first dollars to maximize the benefits for the community and the overall corridor,” said Campbell.

“The Northern Transportation corridor is a critical component of our long term strategy, so we’ll do what we’ve done in the past with Prince Rupert.”

“We’ll listen to their ideas and we’ll try and provide assistance,’ said Campbell.

“We probably won’t be able to say ‘yes’ to everything they ask for, but we’ll be able to say ‘yes’ to some of the things and that will be progress.

“We want to make sure Prince Rupert is known as a transportation hub, but I want to be fair to everyone so you can’t expect everything at once, but you can expect progress to be made. You’ll see that with the port, as we’re clearly going to be pushing hard for Phase Two. As we build Phase Two and build the capacity, I think there will be further investments that will take place.”

Coons is aware of the importance of building the Port of Prince Rupert and the provincial investments that will be necessary for expanding capacity, but believes that to reach the goal of expansion other infrastructure investments need to happen.

“Aside from promoting development in First Nations communities, this project would make out airport more viable, thus supporting the trade infrastructure brought in by our port,” said Coons.

“As I have repeatedly stated in the house and to various ministers, if we want a world class port, we need to have upgrades to the rest of our infrastructure, including the transportation links that serve our airport,” continued Coons.

“A fixed-link integrated transportation system can serve as a further catalyst for the transformation of Lax Kw’alaams, Metlakatla and Prince Rupert into an economically self-reliant and socially vibrant region, and as such this project ought to be a high priority for the government..”