Many Greater Victoria drivers saw their dreams come true on Wednesday, with governments finally committing to build an interchange at the McKenzie Avenue intersection with the Trans-sa国际传媒 Highway.
The governments announced $85 million to build the interchange and another $22 million to extend Westshore Parkway to connect the Trans-sa国际传媒 to Highway 14.
After decades of being stuck in the Colwood Crawl, drivers can look forward to a day when the traffic lights will disappear from the McKenzie intersection. But before they pop the champagne corks, they should realize that an interchange will probably move the bottleneck to a different point on their commuting route.
As has been proven in other cities, congestion doesn鈥檛 vanish with projects such as this one. Traffic lights act as valves, releasing vehicles onto main roads. No matter how wide or fast the highways are, they always fill up with traffic.
Still, the project could spread out the choke points and will ease a major source of aggravation.
The announcement means governments are finally doing what should have been done 20 years ago. In the mid-1990s, plans for an interchange were on the table, but the NDP government yanked them. As with needed interchanges on the Pat Bay Highway, opportunities to improve traffic flow were lost in those days.
Once again, however, the decision highlights our lack of a co-ordinated policy on transportation in the capital region. Each municipality operates as if it were an island.
The McTavish Road interchange on the Pat Bay Highway was built not because it was the most needed, but because the plans had already been drawn and the Victoria Airport Authority had cash to contribute when Ottawa started throwing around money to stimulate the economy. The federal share of that project would have been better used to build the McKenzie/Trans-sa国际传媒 interchange.
However, without a co-ordinating eye on the region鈥檚 true transportation needs, every municipality sets its own priorities.
The McKenzie intersection is in Saanich, but most of those affected by the congestion come from neighbouring communities. As a result, none of the municipalities have seen the problem as theirs to solve.
The drivers who are going out of their minds while sitting in the daily gridlock that is the Colwood Crawl don鈥檛 care whose problem it is. Those drivers want government 鈥� any government 鈥� to act.
At last, the federal and provincial governments have acted. The cost of infrastructure projects is often split equally among federal, provincial and municipal governments, but such is not the case with the McKenzie interchange.
It will be funded mainly by the provincial government, which is committing $52.3 million, while the federal government kicks in the remaining $32.6 million. Municipalities are off the hook.
For the Westshore Parkway, a Langford priority, the three governments will split the cost.
We can probably thank the looming federal election for loosening Ottawa鈥檚 purse strings. The New Building sa国际传媒 Fund has been around since 2013, but has paid out little money. Suddenly, Conservative MPs are flitting about the country pollinating one project after another.
The new interchange will not be the miracle cure that frustrated drivers have longed for, but it will ease the most serious bottleneck on the lower Island. At least for a little while.
