From the Island to the Mainland – A Straight-Up Story About Bridging

 

island to the mainland
An map of fixed link proposed alignments

It’s been raised many times in the past, and it’ll likely continue to be a hot topic as long as Vancouver Island remains separated from the mainland (which will probably be a very long time). We’re talking, of course, about building a connection across the Georgia Straight. The fixed link has been a fixation for us, Islanders and island visitors for decades.

A Bridge

Common suggestions include building a bridge, like Prince Edward Island’s Confederation Bridge. It seems like an easy choice. After all, it’s being done elsewhere, and how much cheaper and easier would it be if we could just drive to and from the Island without having to worry about taking a ferry? Once we start looking a little closer, though, things get a lot more complicated.

The Confederation Bridge, for example, is about 13 kilometres long, and its supports go into a solid rock foundation in relatively shallow water (about 35 metres deep). Compare that with crossing the Georgia Strait, where you’re looking at a crossing of up to 26 kilometres and depths of up to 365 metres. That’s deeper than the Eiffel Tower is tall. And even when you reach the bottom, it’s not a nice, solid foundation – you’ve got to go through many metres of silt before you get there. It’s also an active shipping channel, prone to seismic activity, extreme waves and high winds… not exactly ideal conditions for a bridge.

A Tunnel

The Channel Tunnel connecting France and the UK, is talked about a lot, so let’s take a look at that first. As it turns out, it’s not a very good comparison, as it’s only 75 metres deep at its lowest point. A better example might be Japan’s Seikan Tunnel, which at about 50 kilometres long and 240 metres deep is the longest and the deepest operational rail tunnel in the world. There’s also the Eiksund Tunnel in Norway. At nearly 300 metres down, it’s the deepest undersea road tunnel in the world, but it’s not even eight kilometres long. When you start to look at these stats, it really becomes apparent just how unique our situation is. There really is no comparison out there for a tunnel on the scale that we’d have to build.

Other Ideas and Considerations

Other ideas that have been talked about include a floating bridge and a floating, submerged tunnel. Both options have serious challenges, as the technology to build and operate them safely is still unproven, and therefore, at this point, neither look like a good option.

Oh, and the cost? A toll would be needed in order to pay for the construction, maintenance, rehabilitation and insurance over the fixed link’s 100-year expected life span. The amount of the toll would depend on the total cost of the project, but initial estimates run from a low of $180 to a high of $800. And that’s just one way.

If you’d like to find out more about the study we’ve done on the fixed link, we’ve got a web page called A Potential Fixed Link to Vancouver Island. It should be interesting reading for anyone who has been as fixated on this topic as we have.

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Page 1 of 61 comments on “From the Island to the Mainland – A Straight-Up Story About Bridging”

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  1. What about the possibility of several bridges connecting Campbell River to Quadra Is and so on until reaching the mainland. Powell River for years have been asking for a highway to connect them to highway 99. Push through a connector over to highway 1 at Cache Creek and make a route from there to Campbell River, linking up the Island South to Victoria.

    • Hi Kurt, thanks for sharing your suggestion with us here. We have forwarded it to our planning staff, and will reply to you again here if they have any information to share on the topic.

    • Hi again, Kurt. We heard back from our planning engineering office, who asked us to pass along this information: “Thank you for your suggestion about improving connectivity between the island and the mainland. The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MOTI) plans, designs, and builds provincial transportation projects across the province. Our challenging terrain has shaped the development of the provincial transportation network. Additions to the network must benefit British Columbians, either directly by improving safety or reliability, or indirectly by connecting goods to market or improving access to labour. Although we are not actively planning the connections that you asked about, as the needs of British Columbia evolves, one or more of your suggested projects may need to be considered. Thank you for taking the time to write to us- it is always our pleasure to hear from British Columbians.”

    • Hi, Anonymous – for all the reasons listed in this blog, this is not likely to ever happen.
      Crossing the Georgia Strait, where you’re looking at a crossing of up to 26 kilometres and depths of up to 365 metres. That’s deeper than the Eiffel Tower is tall.
      And even when you reach the bottom, it’s not a nice, solid foundation – you’ve got to go through many metres of silt before you get there.
      It’s also an active shipping channel,
      prone to seismic activity,
      extreme waves and high winds… not exactly ideal conditions for a bridge.

  3. Will you guys consider building islands on the Georgia strait to construct a fix Link to the mainland from Vancouver Island? This will help making it easier to build the fix link by bridge. Countries like China and Dubai are creating land from the water known as land reclamation.

    • Hi, Anonymous – for all the reasons listed in this blog, this is not likely to ever happen.
      Even if we were to have the incredible budget required to “build new islands”, we would still be left with the feat of crossing the Georgia Strait, where you’re looking at a crossing of up to 26 kilometres and depths of up to 365 metres. That’s deeper than the Eiffel Tower is tall. And even when you reach the bottom, it’s not a nice, solid foundation – you’ve got to go through many metres of silt before you get there. Dubai and Chine have done land reclamation in areas with depths nowhere near as deep.
      It’s also an active shipping channel,
      prone to seismic activity,
      extreme waves and high winds… not exactly ideal conditions for a bridge.

  4. Will you guys reconsider the Sunshine Coast fixed link idea again from the Lower Mainland? Can you guys also consider studying the possibility of a Sunshine Coast to Vancouver Island fixed link? Will the fixed link require tolls? Can you guys do another study about the Vancouver Island fixed link because technology is getting more advanced? Finally, Can you guys also study the possibility of a Vancouver Island to Salt Spring Island Fixed Link?

    • Hello, Anonymous – thanks for your questions. Our responses to each are below.

      Will you guys reconsider the Sunshine Coast fixed link idea again from the Lower Mainland? At this time there are no plans to reconsider a new feasibility study for this type of connection. The study concluded that a fixed link crossing would have many technical and financial challenges. The study narrowed the options to two bridge link crossings and two road link crossings connecting the upper and lower half of the Sunshine Coast. Each option presents serious challenges, including steep rocky areas, mountain passes and deep water channels, which would result in very high construction costs. None of the options completely eliminates the need for ferry travel.https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/transportation/transportation-reports-and-reference/reports-studies/vancouver-island/sunshine-coast-fixed-link

      Can you guys also consider studying the possibility of a Sunshine Coast to Vancouver Island fixed link? For the same reasons listed above, the likelihood of a feasibility study for this route is not likely anytime soon.

      Will the fixed link require tolls? Any fixed link, if it ever happened, would likely require sizable tolls to supplement the massive cost of building and maintaining the infrastructure.

      Can you guys do another study about the Vancouver Island fixed link because technology is getting more advanced? Technology does continue to improve but the real issues are the environmental factors, combined with the cost to build and maintain structures. Even if we were to have the incredible budget required to “build new islands”, we would still be left with the feat of crossing the Georgia Strait, where you’re looking at a crossing of up to 26 kilometres and depths of up to 365 metres. That’s deeper than the Eiffel Tower is tall. And even when you reach the bottom, it’s not a nice, solid foundation – you’ve got to go through many metres of silt before you get there. Dubai and Chine have done land reclamation in areas with depths nowhere near as deep. It’s also an active shipping channel, prone to seismic activity, extreme waves and high winds… not exactly ideal conditions for a bridge.

      Finally, Can you guys also study the possibility of a Vancouver Island to Salt Spring Island Fixed Link? We need to consider the volume of traffic vs. the costs associated with the construction of infrastructure, which (when combined with the reasons listed above) makes this extremely unlikely.

      Hope this is helpful.

  8. This defeatist attitude is why we can’t get anything accomplished in Canada anymore. We used to innovate not make excuses and wait to see how others have done it. Where there’s will there’s a way. This story seems to scream “we have no will”

  10. I think it’s about time to sell all the ferry’s and build a Huge bridge or tunnel to content Vancouver to Vancouver island two bridges Victoria to Nanaimo to North shore

  11. Have you looked at the possibility of making a Vancouver Island Fixed Link a Non-Road Fixed Link, if a Fixed Link actually happens?

    There are 2 Forms of Non-Road Fixed Links that might work:

    1, Rail. A rail route from Victoria to Vancouver via the “Dayliner” Victoria-Duncan/Victoria-Nanaimo section would potentially allow more people to flow through the Fixed Link on a daily basis and would be cheaper per passenger ($50 per passenger?). It would also allow freight trains, which run at a cheaper cost than cargo trucks, to run from Delta to Victoria, making goods cheaper on the island.
    If the Trains were electrified, then it would be the first “emission neutral” way to travel from Vancouver Island to Vancouver.
    Apart from it probably being a little slower than driving from Victoria to Vancouver (unless the project was made further more expensive by adding high speed rail.) and The “Dayliner” Needing $1 Billion Repairs, This route seems to be a more efficient way than taking a car.

    2, Hyperloop. Hyperloop is an upcoming form of transport that go at airplane level speed on the ground. It has alot of the benefits that rail has, but is half the cost of building high speed rail and 3-4 times as fast. A Victoria-Nanaimo-Vancouver Hyperloop system would make the the island 20 minutes away from the mainland. With good scheduling and organization, 30-40 thousand people could go through this system per day
    The only issue is that Hyperloop is still being perfected and we don’t how well it might work underwater, so even if Hyperloop makes this project feasible it will take a few more years of research before we can start building the fixed link section.

    Bottom Line: I’m more interested in a Rail/Hyperloop Fixed Link than a Road Fixed. You probably have looked at the prospect of a Rail Fixed Link by now, and probably should look at if Hyperloop or Rail would be more feasible or more beneficial than a Road Fixed Link.
    Just a Suggestion for other forms of Transport on a Vancouver Island Fixed Link.

  12. I wish u west coasters luck in making the island more accessible. While on the topic of tunnels. Has the gov of BC and the federal government talked about an better solution than attempting to twin highway 1 between Revelstoke/golden and then still have to deal with snow removal/avalanches which close the highway frequently and negatively effects Canada’s gdp not to mention it will probably take another 20yrs to complete at this speed…. it’s a national disgrace and laughable that this is the national highway of a G8 nation. Perhaps a tunnel would be a better option?!

    • Thanks for the comment and good wishes for us West Coasters Kirk. We work closely with public and the federal government to improve this important stretch of road. Here’s a link to further information on the four-laning work underway, as well as consultations and planned projects: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/transportation/transportation-infrastructure/projects/highway1-kamloops-alberta/highway1-kamloops-alberta-public-consultation

      • even more off topic… lol On our mountain passes, I’ve often wondered why more tunnels haven’t been built.. the Coquihalla for instance. The worst part of that highway is the section they call the smasher… and for good reason. You have a section where the snow and ice gets so bad, that the crews cant keep on top of it. then you have a snow shed that starts halfway up the hill and then ends, leaving still quite a stretch of steep hill ahead for all to struggle their way up to the top (including trucks weighing up to 140,000 lbs) my thought has always been that for the amount of money it has cost to keep highways crews on that hill since they built the highway, they probably could have just built that snow shed from the bottom of the hill, clear to the top,10 times over by now. Maybe something should be learned from this and the idea of putting a longer tunnel or snow shed in on the Rogers Pass AND the Coquihalla, should be considered…??

        • Hi Vance,

          Thanks for your question. When we plan projects, analyzing options is a critical part of our process. We evaluate the pros of those options against their technical difficulty and cost (we are required by law to be fiscally responsible with our budget). Tunneling can be a very costly option, given that we must also account for construction, maintenance, rock type consideration, ventilation and more. Our maintenance contractors on each BC highway are aware of the unique geography and any issues in their service areas and plan their maintenance accordingly. We also try to remind motorists that snow and ice are sometimes an inevitability on BC highways, no matter how many plows our contractors have out, and that they are required to slow down and drive to conditions. We hope that this helps.

  13. A bit off topic here but does having a ferry route between the lower Sunshine Coast (Langdale) and Vancouver Island make sense? Have there been any discussions about making this a possibility? Seems logical considering both destinations have ferry terminals in place. Currently it takes two ferries and nearly 8 hours to make that trip. Thanks for your time.

  14. A tunnel 3 km long would avoid the rockfall and avalanche hazard at Three Valley on the Trans-Canada Highway (not to mention several highly accident prone curves and gradients). But even that seems to be far too ambitious a project for the BC Ministry of Transportation to even consider and even if they did would undoubtedly be too expensive for our government (of either complexion) to approve. A fixed link to the Island would be orders of magnitude more difficult and expensive.

      • Yes, I know you have a study saying a fixed link to the Island isn’t feasible. You DO have a Kamloops to Alberta Border program but you don’t have any feasibility studies for how you are going to 4 lane (or otherwise improve) Three Valley (or Summit Lake or Silver Creek or any of the other difficult sections). Maybe it is time to start PLANNING how you are going to deliver Kamloops to Alberta Border 4 laning. Or perhaps you know you don’t have to bother because all the managers and planners at the Ministry (let alone the politicians in the government) will have retired long before you get close to completing the Kamloops to Alberta Border program.

        Or perhaps be honest and abandon the pretense that there is a Kamloops to Alberta Border Program worth the name.

        • Hi Nick. Much of this road presents serious engineering challenges, which means design and build can take significant time and money.

          The Salmon Arm West project is expected to be complete in 2023, and Donald to Forde is expected to be finished soon. Phase 4 of the Kicking Horse Canyon, however, is a little more extensive. Work is slated to start this year, and completion is expected to take six to seven years.

          We are committed to improving the safety and reliability of this corridor. There are 337 kilometres of provincial Highway 1 between Kamloops and Alberta (Parks Canada oversees the remaining 103 kilometres), so four-laning is a long-term effort.

  15. Have you considered a hybrid solution where the Gulf islands are connected to each other and Saltspring to Duncan. Ferries would continue on the main Tsawwassen Swartz Bay route, and just the Galiano link from Tsawwassen plus the Fulford and Otter Bay runs from Swartz Bay for the Islands. This would remove the lesser used inter island ferry routes. It would also give the islands a land link to Vancouver Island.

  16. Why not go to a mile in depth like they did when they crossed horizontally with the recent Swiss Alps tunnel. (Apparently the longest tunnel currently (2019) in the world today.I think it is about 55 kilometers. Boring machines are apparently much more efficient than only a few years ago. The Swiss used reinforced steel rings to hold up the weight of over one mile of rock above the tunnel. Not saying this is feasible here but it does make one think that maybe worth another look. Maybe the answer is to bite the bullet and go deeper.

    • Hi Deryk,

      We heard back from our Bridge Engineering group on your question and here’s what they let us know. A crossing of Georgia Straight faces many challenges including: earthquakes, very deep water, a very deep soft soil deposit seabed (not suitable for tunnel boring), and underwater landslide risk. The state of the art for tunnels continues to progress, with significant advances in both scope and technology occurring around the world – notably in Switzerland (as you mentioned) and in Scandinavia. Given the technical challenges however the ministry is not considering this project at this time.

  18. I looked at the link to the preliminary studies, the last one was conducted in 1985. Are there any plans to conduct an up-to-date study? When you consider that the average trip takes approximately 4 hours and as the cost of ferry travel becomes more expensive a toll of $120 to bypass ferry lineups and reduce travel time becomes favourable.

    • Hi Caleb,

      No new studies have been undertaken for a fixed crossing between Vancouver Island and the Mainland. Our bridge engineers estimate that tolls would be significantly greater than they were estimated at 15 years ago, which was between $180 and $800.

  19. Has the Transport Ministry surveyed a connector route north of Campbell River to the Regional District of Powell River across First Nations lands? When was this done and what was the estimated cost?

  20. Thank you for this. I’ve often wondered “why not just build a bridge” myself, and this explains succinctly why it’d be easier said than done. Investing in faster ferry service and lower tolls would be much more useful.

    • Hi Rod,

      We asked our Bridge Engineering Department if the Jiaozhou Bridge was a feasible example for a crossing between the mainland and Vancouver Island. They told us that The Jiaozhou Bay Bridge is located where water depths do not exceed 15 meters, except for specifically dredged, narrow navigation channels. Constructing bridge piers in 15 meters of water is fairly straightforward, with longer cable stayed spans to bridge over narrow navigation channels. This type of construction is not possible in Georgia Strait, where water depths up to 365 meters extend over a considerable portion of the crossing. No bridge has yet been built over a wide and deep channel like Georgia Strait.

      Hope that this helps! Thanks for connecting with us here and let us know if you have any other questions.

      • International Marine Floating Systems(IMFS)was born in the early 1980s to take advantage of our ideas for Floating Structures. We viewed the surface of the water as potential Real Estate which then would require permanent foundations etc. Since then we have designed and built over 400 Floating Structures with our unsinkable Concrete concepts the largest in Lake Powell USA of 27,000 sf. and breakwater sections of 2000 tons ea. We would like to arrange a meeting with the appropriate person. Regards – Dan Wittenberg Pres. IMFS

          • Has anyone considered if a pipe line would aliveate some of the transportation issue . I mean if you could transport groceries and even building supplies through pipeline that would take some of thee load off the ferries freeing up those resources to deploy in other areas. Pipe line would be a Fraction if the cost . Anyway just a thought