There are two things we don鈥檛 know about the replacement for the Johnson Street Bridge 鈥� how much it will cost and when it will open. Those two facts keep changing.
But one thing we do know: This was a flawed process. When the bridge is finally completed, it will stand as an expensive monument to prideful politicians and should serve as a lesson on how not to undertake a major project.
When Victoria鈥檚 city council approved construction of the new bridge in 2009, the cost was estimated to be $63 million, with completion by Sept. 30, 2015. Since then, the cost has risen steadily 鈥� $77 million, $89 million and to $94.3 million as recently as January. Now, project director Jonathan Huggett is asking Victoria city council this week for another $2.5 million, bringing the cost to $96.8 million, and will likely seek more money later.
His progress report also pushes the opening date back several months, with opening scheduled for the spring of 2017 and completion in the fall of that year.
Opponents of the project, who favoured refurbishing the old bridge and whose discontent forced the 2010 borrowing referendum, said then the cost would be close to $100 million, and it turned out they were right.
They estimated the cost to refurbish at $35 million, but that figure was also out of whack 鈥� a detailed engineering analysis estimated refurbishing the existing bridge would cost $103 million.
In the November 2010 referendum, the vote was 60 per cent in favour of borrowing for the new bridge, 40 per cent against. But that did not signal clear sailing for the project. Delays and rising costs continued to plague the project.
After bridge contractor PCL Constructors Westcoast Inc. submitted a change order to the city for an additional $7.9 million to complete its work, city manager Jason Johnson hired Huggett as consultant to assess the risks associated with the project. The city and the project manager parted ways as a result of that assessment, and Huggett took over as project manager.
That was a good move, but the project continues to wrestle with challenges, including significant flaws found in the steel components manufactured in China and continuing disagreements with builders and engineers over cost overruns.
One of the problems was the design-build contract approved in 2012 when the bridge was only 60 per cent designed. The hope was that the arrangement would create opportunities to lower costs, but that was a wan hope, especially considered most large-projects cost far more than estimated.
And yet, politicians trying to sell a project to the public tend to be unrealistically optimistic about cost estimates. That included including a woefully inadequate contingency fund of four per cent in the project鈥檚 budget.
The Johnson Street Bridge is small potatoes compared to the multibillion-dollar megaprojects studied by Bent Flyberg, chairman of Program Management at Oxford University, but his findings still apply.
鈥淣ine out of 10 such projects have cost overruns,鈥� he writes in his paper, What You Should Know About Megaprojects and Why. 鈥淥verruns of up to 50 per cent in real terms are common, over 50 per cent are not uncommon.鈥�
The city wanted a unique, striking design to grace Victoria鈥檚 Inner Harbour. Fair enough, but at what cost? Cities all over the world have bascule bridges; an existing design could likely have been adapted for much lower cost and fewer hassles to span the narrow body of water.
As the region prepares to build new sewage-treatment facilities, let us hope lessons have been learned in managing large projects. Put the right expertise in place from the start and be realistic about costs and problems.
