Saturday, November 20, 2010

Let Them Eat Cake!...While They Pay For Our Highway To The Condo Stars...

HurryHurryHurryBeforeTheyGoInsane
PrivatizedRoadsToPublicRuinVille



“The accuracy of the traffic counting system is extremely important on the Sea to Sky Highway because the roadway is financed through a shadow tolling scheme. Transtoll is pleased to provide our experience and expertise to allow the Concession to optimize their system and capture accurate vehicle counts in a cost effective manner”.



Shadow Tolls that Gordon Campbell's PAB-Bots in the Ministry of Pavement say do not exist.

The (real) Queen of Lotusland's Bloggodome, Laila Yule, has all the stories.


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Dave of The Galloping Beaver, as ever, got right to the heart of the matter when he pulled the quote above from the press release from the fine folks at the most appropriately named Transtoll.....Oh, and guess who actually owns said fine folks lock, stock and barrel?...
Give up?.....Well.....Laila has the goods on that one too....."Transtoll is (a) wholly owned subsidiary of Macquarie Atlas Roads".......Ha!

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7 comments:

BC Mary said...

RossK,

I know who the old white-haired dude is. But who is the lady and why, why is she smiling??

It makes me think we need a big portrait of the lady who has something special to be smiling about: Laila Yuile.
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Grant G said...

Hi Mary...That smiling lady is no other than....

Joan Mcintyre..BC Liberal MLA for West Vancouver sea to sky riding...and..

She was also part of the polling outfit ....
{Mcintyre and Mustel}...Now known as just Mustel...

Is it any wonder that Mustel polls (IMO) have blatantly skewed polling results in favour of the BC Liberals...

2 weeks before our last BC Election Mustel had the BC Libs with a 17 point lead over the NDP...

And yesterday, according to Mustel`s latest poll, the BC Liberals are surging in the polls, and are virtually tied with the NDP..

Their poll was done between Nov 4 through to the 15th...Before Campbell`s Tax flip flop and before Bennett`s "confession"

Oh, and Evi Mustel is a regular donater/contributer of cash to the BC Libs!

Cheers

RossK said...

Heh.

Thought it might not be long for GG to check in on this one.

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North Van's Grumps said...

Gee, I'm kind of disappointed with the brass plaque for those that worked on the Sea to Sky highway.

When I worked on that "other" highway, BC Ferries, the only plaque that was presented to each ship (Queen of Oak Bay, etc era) was to tell the traveling public that the ship had been sold to Bank of Montreal lock stock and barrel and that after 16 years the ship would be returned to us, our debt paid off in ferry fares.

With the Sea to Sky Highway, the BC Liberals are telling us that it cost $600 million to build, "Value for Money" they claim. The BC Liberals are adamant about that, a firm price of $600 million, not a penny more. The only fact that is true is that they're lying about the total costs to build the Sea to Sky Highway. Why else is there a need to have a Concessionaire agreement for 25 years based on the amount of cars rolling past a given point, both ways?

Over at BC Mary's I left a comment on CN Rail where I wondered allowed about this Shadow Toll that is on the Sea to Sky Highway. Its one thing to keep telling the public that we own the BC Rail track beds. Its one thing to tell us we received a Billion Dollars, but somehow I would feel a lot better if I knew CN Rail was paying a shadow toll on ever rail car that was going past a specific point for the next 900 years to the same degree that the public has to pay on the highways throughout British Columbia.

Anonymous said...

Ok,Ok, enough, no photos..lol.. a big shout to the Globe for doing the story, and this comment of North Van's is very important.There is much amiss in this province.

North Van's Grumps said...

I'm trying to do my math here....4,808,448 That number is the amount of vehicles that went past the embedded road counter installed by Transtoll just north of Horseshoe Bay in January of 2008. The number will be higher now because the construction has been completed for a year.

But the numbers for 2009 and 2010 are not available to the public. Curious.

Do you think the Concessionaire is pulling in $5 million a year, keep in mind that the predecessor who maintained the highway was being paid just over $10 million per year with an imperfect highway to deal with. Plenty of rock slides, plenty of accidents (not as many as Campbell claimed there was 500)(his own MoT statistics state otherwise). What we have here is a perfect highway, with plenty of bells and whistles, technological gadgets that saves the Concessionaire from actually having to have someone drive the highway to see the conditions of the road.

The point of upgrading the road was to cut costs that were associated with the $10 million.

main map of where the counters are for the whole of the province of bc
http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/trafficdata/tradas/mainmap.asp

For Metro Vancouver http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/trafficdata/tradas/inset5.asp

click on the rectangle box... which will take you to the next webpage and then its up to you what you want to create a database.. volume, speed (yep, those little sucker of a road counters also determines the speed of passing vehicles) before too long you'll be getting your ticket in the mail without the human touch.....

Now if I could only find out what the number is that the Concessionaire is being paid... till the 25 year contract is up, however the BC Liberals aren't telling us. Why?

Anonymous said...

this is fun

Oak Street Bridge - P-16-3ANS - N

2009

counting both directions at once for one week (seven days) 473,068 motor vehicles times 52 (weeks)= 24,599,528

We could have a new Oak Street bridge, six lanes, no, let's go for 10 lanes to match the Port Mann. We have five times the volume of the Sea to Sky highway. The suckers on the Port Mann are paying $5 per trip, Sea to sky pay nothing, looks like a great deal to me. Nothing out of my pocket.

Lets go!!!! Are there any catches I missed?