I missed getting on the Swartz Bay ferry by two cars Wednesday, got to spend a couple of hours of bonus contemplation time at the Tsawwassen terminal.
Tsawwassen tsucks.
I bleated in pink-faced outrage to the ferry workers, explained that being unlucky is something that happens to other people, not me, but they pretended not to see the logic of my argument. I briefly considered self-immolation as a means of protest, but it was too wet.
True, I could have guaranteed a spot aboard the Coastal Perspiration by ponying up $18.50 for a reservation, but that assumes A) that I’m not cheap, which I am, and B) that I knew when I would arrive at the Tsawwassen terminal, which I didn’t.
This is what people who advocate reservation-only ferries forget: There’s more to B.C. than tourism’s Golden Triangle of Victoria-Vancouver-Whistler. If you’re driving from the Interior you can only guess at when you’ll pull in to Tsawwassen or Horseshoe Bay. Get stuck in traffic on the way, you’re hooped.
As it was, the summit of the Coquihalla was like something out of the Old Testament — blinding snow, fog, tree-bending wind, a plague of locusts — though I didn’t know my life was actually in peril until I pulled into Hope and saw the Highway Thru Hell T-shirts for sale. Highway Thru Hell is the name of a hyper-dramatic, fast-cut Discovery Channel reality show largely based on the adventures of tow-truck drivers on the Coquihalla.
Gosh, I thought, I must have been terribly brave to have driven that road. (“I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a hero,” I told the woman at the B.C. Ferries ticket booth, “but you may if you like.”)
Had it not been for Discovery, I would have thought the Coquihalla a pretty decent highway, albeit one pretty much devoid of lane markings, winter having worn the paint away. Perhaps they’ll get some new lines now that the provincial election campaign is upon us.
This is the time for Blacktop Politics, a fine B.C. tradition going back to the days when the Socreds not only opened up the province but uprooted all federal signs from the Trans-Canada and replaced them with provincial ones.
Every region of B.C. has a shopping list during election season. Here on the Island we look at the billions and billions poured into transportation projects on the Lower Mainland and figure we’re overdue for a place at the trough. The province paid $8 million to make the Malahat a bit safer this year, contributed $10.5 million to the McTavish Road interchange/carnival ride in 2011 and agreed to put $4.9 million toward the Spencer Road bridge to nowhere before that, but hasn’t spent big money since the $1.3-billion Vancouver Island Highway Project was finished in 2001.
So Island voters want a McKenzie Interchange, money for ferries, a fix for the Malahat, rail-based transit and — for those undaunted by estimates of a one-way toll of $180 to $800 per vehicle — a bridge to the mainland.
The problem is that elsewhere in B.C., voters are drawing up their own lists. Everyone dwells on their own needs, blind to those of others: Four-laning the Trans-Canada from Kamloops to the Alberta border, upgrades east of Fort St. John, more multi-lane stretches between Prince George and Cache Creek, a replacement for the George Massey Tunnel, and, just to prove people in the Kootenays smoke what they grow, a gazillion-dollar bridge to replace one of the free ferries on Upper Arrow Lake.
Also, everybody in the boonies wants the rural routes paved. As I slowed to pass some newborn calves near Kamloops last week, it occurred to me that many Vancouverites have never even driven down a dirt road, couldn’t tell the difference between an Angus-Hereford cross and a Rhode Island Red. (Victorians, of course, know that Angus Hereford-Cross is the mayor of North Saanich).
It was a reminder of what a massive, diverse province this is, with needs to match — more than we could ever afford. Remember that when the blacktop promises are made: A few voters might see their wish-list dreams come true. Most will miss the boat.
