Attn.: Kootenay Lake Ferry Service Improvements
Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, Marine Branch
P.0. Box 9850 Stn Prov Gov’t
Victoria BC V8W 9T5
2018-03-03
Dear Sir/Madam:
Thank you for the opportunity to comment. The intent of this letter is to comment and present a record of what many people consider to be a flawed process undertaken by the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MoTI) in choosing the existing Balfour Terminal for an upgrade as opposed to establishing a new terminal at Queens Bay North.
The technical feasibility study undertaken and presented by SNC Lavalin in 2016 is unambiguous in its conclusions and recommendations that a terminal relocation to the Queens Bay North site is the best solution to the problems inherent to the Balfour Terminal. This report is a thorough, well researched and valid study that should have formed the basis of the MoTI’s decision regarding a ferry terminal. Every indicator, environmental, economic, technical and social, points to the Queens Bay North site as being superior to any other. The report by WorsleyParsons (2012) states the same conclusions.
The question is: why did the MoTI make a choice clearly based or weighed on the results of an opinion survey as opposed to a technical study? The flaws inherent in relying on a poorly controlled survey, in a campaign blatantly promoting a bias, are surely self-evident. Besides, a survey has no relevance except as a gauge of public opinion over a narrow and local range. That survey should not have been treated as a referendum. For people who have read the SNC Lavalin report or who regularly use the ferry, it was inconceivable that there could be any other alternative that made sense. For this reason, many did not participate in the survey.
The mandate of the MoTI is to provide a transportation system and infrastructure that serves the travelling public as a whole. That means that whether a traveller or service contractor or transporter is moving across the province or just across a lake, he or she should expect that the system operates in their interest in the best way and without prejudice. In fact, we as residents take pride in the quality of our transportation system and the work that the MoTI does. For this reason, there is a great degree of disappointment in the decision the MoTI has taken. It is not just that economic and social impediments on the East Shore of Kootenay Lake will continue to affect the lifestyle, commerce and the economy here but that given the opportunity to make a real improvement to transportation, the MoTI has chosen the costlier, less effective transportation link. And this in the face of technical data and professional recommendations to the contrary.
Can this decision, in what amounts to a sacrifice of the professional integrity of the MoTI, be justified for the sake of appeasing political or self-serving interests as dictated by an opinion survey? Regardless of whether this is the case or not, it is seen to be the case given that valid feasibility studies were discounted.
I would urge the MoTI to reconsider its position on the Balfour Terminal and if necessary undertake and commission a further study, so that its decision can be fully justified both in the present and in the future.
Respectfully,
Alfred S Greene
P.0. Box 57
Kootenay Bay BC V0B 1X0