Free ride on Coquihalla unlikely before 2012

By Ron Seymour Daily Courier

Friday, September 7, 2007Tolls could come off the Coquihalla Highway in about five years, Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon suggested Friday in Kelowna. The provincial government won‘t consider removing the tolls until the construction cost of the highway has been recovered from motorists who use the highway, Falcon told the chamber of commerce. The highway cost $955 million to build, and $700 million in tolls has been collected, with annual revenues currently running at about $50 million. Based on those numbers, the capital cost for the Coquihalla Highway will have been completely recovered by about 2012. “When the capital cost is paid off, we can have a discussion then about the tolls – whether they should be continued, reduced or eliminated,” Falcon said.

The continuance of the tolls decades after the highway opened has been a sore spot for many people in the Interior, and the chamber of commerce has previously urged the government to stop charging motorists to use the route. But the hundreds of people attending the chamber luncheon seemed reluctant to ask Falcon about the issue, until he raised it himself by laughingly saying: “Someone ask me about the tolls. Let‘s get it over with.” That prompted chamber vice-president Wes Shields to say it was a “sheer fairness” issue, since no other new highways in B.C., including the $1.2-billion Island Highway and the Sea-to-Sky Highway, will have tolls. Falcon responded by saying the government in 2003 established a new policy regarding tolls, which dictates in part that motorists won‘t be charged to use a new highway if no alternative routes are available.

“I would have loved to put a toll on the Sea-to-Sky Highway,” Falcon said. “There‘s a bunch of rich people who go up to Whistler all the time, and they can easily afford to pay a toll.” However, there‘s no practical alternative to taking the Sea-to-Sky Highway to get from Vancouver to Whistler, he noted, other than a circuitous back way that would add seven hours to the trip. By contrast, Okanagan drivers heading to the Coast can take either the Hope-Princeton Highway or the Trans-Canada Highway, neither of which have tolls. Shields also claimed that when tolls were introduced on the Coquihalla Highway in the 1980s, then-premier Bill Bennett said they were brought in only to pay for accelerated construction costs, to ensure the road was opened in time for Expo 86. However, Falcon said he‘d been told by long-serving ministry officials that Bennett‘s comments back then were more “nuanced,” and not as explicit as has been suggested. “And, frankly, who cares about any of that, anyway,” Falcon added. Attempts to reach Bennett on Friday were not successful. Since they‘ve been open, the Coquihalla and Okanagan Connector highways have provided considerable economic benefit to the B.C. Interior, and rising traffic shows the tolls are not a significant deterrent to most motorists, Falcon said. “I have never seen things as good as they are right now in the Okanagan,” Falcon said
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Don Quixote Note: May 6 ,2003 Gov of BC Coquihalla Maintenance and operation arrangment & May 6, 203 News release.

3) Coquihalla capital costs remain.
To date, the complete Coquihalla Highway system has cost $955 million for capital and $225 million for operations. By comparison, just $550 million in toll revenue has been raised – less than half the total cost, which does not include interest costs.

Although $42.9 million in toll revenue was raised in 2001-02 to offset the original capital costs, almost half that amount – $21 million – now goes to maintenance, operations and rehabilitation. As the highway ages, increased rehabilitation will be required. For example, the current cost to replace just one of the 26 bridge decks on phase one of the highway would be $500,000.