The B.C. Ministry of Transportation (MoT) is building a new 40 km-long highway in the Lower Mainland, south of Vancouver. The South Fraser Perimeter Road (SFPR) is designed to alleviate traffic congestion and safety issues, particularly from long-distance (faster moving) regional traffic utilising existing local roads to move between Delta and Highway 1 in Surrey. The corridor for the SFPR has diverse range of both ecological values and built infrastructure; southwest Delta has some of the most productive agricultural land in Canada, a significant area of bog wetland (>2000 ha), and along with adjacent Surrey has highly developed industrial land (including port and railway infrastructure) and residential housing. Advancing the Project requires reconciling potential effects on this range of values. The SFPR was proposed to be advanced by the MoT as a public private partnership (P3), sometimes called a design, build, finance and operate (DBFO) delivery model. In the case of SFPR, the environmental assessment (EA) process was based on a reference (or preliminary) concept and undertaken before the final design was complete. While this approach provides flexibility and opportunities for innovation in the final design, it can be perceived as causing uncertainty with respect to effectively managing potential project-related effects during EA processes. For the covering abstract of this conference see ITRD number E217481.
Abstract