Thoughts on Transportation

As I depart the South Island I am thrust into the world of transportation. I load myself (Ryan) and a motorcycle (KTM) into a pickup (Ford), drive, board a ferry (Spirit of Vancouver), pass through a tunnel (Massey) and over several bridges (Granville and Port Mann), driving several Highways (17, 99,7a and the good old #1 Trans-Canada) to get to Grandmas.

Such complicated infrastructure, machines and methods all fall under the very broad mandate of “Transportation” and our Ministry, currently, the British Columbia Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, is responsible for a large proportion thereof.

In times past, the Ministry was heavily focused on Highways, in fact from 1979 to 2001 it was included right in the name: “Ministry of Transport and Highways” Such a name gave gravity to the fact that British Columbians needed roads to get from place to place and led to what is now over 45,000km of them in this province today. In 2001, the “Highways” designation was dropped, likely as it was beginning to be seen as lessening component of the transportation matrix and in 2008 “Infrastructure” was appended.

So here I drive, more than a decade into this era of “infrastructure”, a number of Public-Private Partnerships and wholesale provincial mega-projects behind, with the sense that this verbage was not irrelevant. Names are powerful forces in and of themselves. We are now all well aware of “crumbling infrastructure”, old tunnels that require replacement, ferries that need to be refit and of course bridges and railways that need endless maintenance. I think British Columbians also sense that perhaps the portfolio is now to broad, taking far too long to experiment with ride-sharing and car sharing and other wonders of a very connected world that perhaps requires less new “infrastructure” and more strategic allocation of assets that we already have. I won’t yet suggest that we re-badge as “The ministry of Transportation/Debt Servicing and Bicycle Lanes” but maybe we need to re-imagine the era of “Public Works”.

At the dawn of this province and for 50 years or so, Transportation was a Department included under “Public Works” and its affiliated Minister. What “works for the public” might be a good appendage to the current nomenclature? Ask yourself, as you are whisked around today, masks on or off, where our Province requires action and change in regard to Transportation. If you live in Oak Bay Gordon Head, please let me know as you move about, where you see us transporting transportation in the coming years.

We can get there if we really want.

Sincerely,

Ryan (rjgisler@hotmail.com)