Most of us would love to get to the Lower Mainland by bridge, rather than by ferry - making the trip in an hour or so, rather than having to worry about lineups and delays and ferry fares.

That's why people have been talking about a bridge across the Strait of Georgia since the 1870s. That's why plans have been drawn up from time to time, along with great theories about how a series of bridges could leapfrog across the Gulf Islands and then, in some magical way, a span would cross water that is 365 metres deep.

Dream on. A bridge linking Vancouver Island to the mainland is about as likely as a bridge to the moon.

Yes, we would love to see a bridge. But it's not going to happen.

The notion of a bridge seems to come up whenever people express their unhappiness with B.C. Ferries.

Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Blair Lekstrom, when asked about a bridge recently, replied that "it just doesn't seem feasible," and added that "a bridge is not really in the cards right now."

Lekstrom was right; if anything, he was sugar-coating the truth. A bridge is not in the cards right now, and it won't be in the future, either.

The idea has been studied over and over. The answers have been consistent: A bridge would be hugely expensive, pose insurmountable construction problems, be vulnerable to earthquakes and extreme weather, and wouldn't really help Greater Victoria residents anyway.

The last time the government looked into it, the cost of construction was estimated to be $8 billion to $12 billion.

Motorists would face tolls of $260 to $800. Each way. And those estimates were from 2004; costs and tolls would be higher today.

Several different concepts have been considered, including a bored tunnel, a submerged floating tunnel, a floating pontoon bridge and a series of cable-stayed bridges on floating, anchored pier structures.

All would pose major construction challenges because of the depth of the water, the soft sediment on the floor of the strait, and the distance to be crossed - 26 kilometres or more, depending on the route.

Most of the bridge proposals have assumed that the Island end would be somewhere between Duncan and Nanaimo, so people in Greater Victoria would need to go over the Malahat to use it. And of course, the Malahat highway is subject to bad weather and closures from time to time, so it would add a level of uncertainty to any bridge crossing.

A bridge across Saanich Inlet would, in theory, take care of that worry - but let's dispense with that idea while we're at it. The Malahat woes will not be solved by building a bridge between the Mill Bay area and the Saanich Peninsula.

A 2007 study for the Transportation Ministry looked at both a 1.4-kilometre span from Bamberton to the Highlands and a four-kilometre link from north of Mill Bay to the north end of the Peninsula. The study found that one would cost about $700 million and the other $1.2 billion.

Only five per cent of Malahat traffic is from the north Peninsula. The cost of that bridge could not be justified.

But let's assume, just for the sake of argument, that a bridge over the Strait of Georgia is built and the Malahat bottleneck relieved. What would happen with a big earthquake or typhoon knocks out the bridge?

We wouldn't have ferries to fall back on; they would have been sold to help pay for the bridge. Ferry terminals might also be knocked out, of course, but they could be returned to service more quickly than a bridge.

When all the facts are considered, it's hard to support the idea of a bridge - and we have not even mentioned the impact of a bridge on the neighbourhoods and islands that would be directly affected.

Lekstrom is right; a bridge is not feasible. NDP ferries critic Gary Coons agrees. They've done their homework on this, and they understand the simple truth.

A bridge to the mainland is not going to happen. Now, can we stop talking about it?