Didn't the Simon Fraser job cost double the tender price? We need some controls for this project.

What's in it for Prince George in having traffic bypass the city?

All levels of government in DEEP DEBT, yet they can all SHARE & SPEND the tax payers money. SPEND SPEND SPEND. Almost 600 billion federally, 2 billion and counting provincially and 111 million for PG. Can someone please tell me with all the talk of getting out of debt, why all levels of government are on a spending spree adding millions of dollars on that backs of our future generations? When are we going to say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH and reign in government and their spending? This is getting out of hand! 2 million for a fake lake, 1.3 billion to protect 20 people and that does not include the caviar, $500.00 bottle of wines and top of the line accommodations. ALL paid for on the backs of the hard working Canadians who most are struggling, living payday to payday. It is like giving your kids KD while you sit and eat a large juicy steak in front of them. Some of the conspiracy theories have been saying for 20 years that governments will spend their countries into debt and the result is GREECE. The elitists will come in and save the day by creating a New World Order, one government. It is hard to ignore such things when they are blatantly happening in front of our SHEEPLE eyes. Things are terribly wrong and no one seems to care. It is easier to watch Jon and Kate plus 8.

"What's in it for Prince George in having traffic bypass the city?"

1. Do not assume that all traffic has Prince George as an end or even intermediary destination.

2. Prince George will still be the largest service centre for several hundred kilometres.

3. Those who need services in Prince will stop to receive it and move on.

4. The old Cariboo Highway from the closed Art Knapp's location to the intersection with HWY 16 east at Ritchie Brothers is already a bypass from 97 south to 16 east. Boundary road changes nothing much in the first instance. The new "bypass" will happen if the Bridge is built across the Fraser at Sintich Road. That will take a few more years, or decades.

5. When it does happen, it will remove that traffic that moves from 97 south to 16 west and the reverse will no longer have to go through the intersection at the Casino/Playhouse, nor have to go up or down Peden Hill. It will make the roads safer, it will mean pavement will last longer, and it will mean less air pollution for those living along those arterials.

6. For the real clients, those who truck that route, it will mean a saving in time and gas.

BTW, I have a hard time seeing the intersection drawing clearly. Is that a bridge or a roundabout at the intersection, or a simple and cheap signalled intersection?

Took a look at the map of the road in the Council Agenda package. That is a signalled intersection with pedestrian crosswalks to 4 "islands".

The interesting thing is that there is a roundabout at the northern end of Boundary at the Boeing intersection. Even more interesting is that there is no improvement to the intersection at the service station where Boundary intersects HWY 16 east. A new contract in the next year or so?

waste of money

Isn't the project supposed to be done by end of march 2011 due to the stimulus funds?

And what exactly determines what is a waste of money?

The ultimate in wasting money would be to get stacks of paper money and burn it.

This money is circulated back into the economy. Civil works such as this actually leave more money in the local economy than building projects which contain a lot of materials manufactured elsewhere.

Setting up a retail outlet which sells products produced in other communities and especially other countries is a far greater waste of money. Car dealerships suck the community dry. We do not prodcue any cars here, nor any components of cars any longer that I am aware of. Some 20 years ago, we actually were producing some. The key requirement for that electronics firm was to be close to an airport, interestingly enough. So he moved to Kelowna, to better weather and was able to do so because they too had an airport.

we should produce everything in prince george. adam smith was an idiot.

What bothers me is the whole route has a bike trail, sidewalk and lighting. No one lives there! We do not have sidewalks or a bike trail on our road and there are 3 thousand residents living and paying taxes. Hell we barely have a edge of road left. I guess all one can do is shake their head and move on.

Why put it to tender, IDL will get it anyways, like every other contract the city puts out.

The bike trails and lights are also being installed on River Road. Those *A* Holes actually stated that by widening River Road they would reduce the number of **Head On Collisions** and the number of vehicles that drove into the ditch. I have worked in that area, and have talked to others that have been there for 30 or more years, and none of us are aware of a head on collision every taking place, or cars in the ditch for that matter.

These dudes put out whatever information they can to justify the project. Most of it is bogus, and would not stand up under close scrutiny, however you will not get any close scrutiny in this town. The majority of people in this Burg are nothing more than uninterested yes men.

Take the Boundry Road cut off from Highway 16 to 97. How much traffic do you think comes in from the East and actually goes West on 16, or South on 97. I can tell you that there is very little traffic. For those trucks going South on 97 (very few) they would still us the Old Cariboo Highway, unless they closed it and forced them to use Boundry. The traffic from 16 East to 16 West could use the Boundry Road Cut-off, or it could continue down 1st Avenue and access 16 West via Victoria, which is the actual highway. Or they could use first Ave, cross the Cameron St., Bridge go around the traffic loop and connect with 97 South to Highway 16 and then West. There are a hell of a lot of options, and very little traffic. Most traffic going East on 16 terminats in Prince George, and not much of that actually goes to the BCR Industrial Park.

Traffic coming from 16 East to go North on 97 is almost non-existent.

My point is that none of this infrastructure is necessary. None of the long term plans show any increase in truck or car traffic on these highways any time soon.

If people would put their thinking caps on (fat chance) they would note that Rustads have shut down, Netherlands Overseas Mills in long gone. North Central Plywoods is gone, BC Rail Intermodal is gone, and the South Scale is gone. What this means is that approx 2000 vehicles per day or more no longer use Highway 97 from the BC Rail Industrial Park to Prince George. Add in the huge decline in traffic Northbound on 97 due to Walmart, Cdn Tire, Great Cdn Superstore, etc being built in Quesnel resulting in less traffic coming to Pr George, and WALLA, you have no need to twin the bridge.

These are just some examples of money being wasted.

Gus. If private business or individuals want to waste their money, that is their business, after all its THEIR money. Dont confuse private money with tax dollars. Government are famous for wasting money, and I agree with Munnica, that we need to find a way to stop them.

Killing the HST is one way. The less money Government has, the less it can waste. This is very simple. So we have to reduce our taxes to decrease the amount that they can piss against a tree.

We can and probably will in the very near future take on City Hall to get them to stop the madness. It may even come to the point where 5000 people will just have refuse to pay any more tax increases, and go to court. Seems to work for the big companies. Maybe we could get a class action going, and sue the City for being fiscally irresponsible with our money. Who knows??

One thing is certain, if we do nothing they will continue to bleed us.

Palopu. You are the minority and those who look at these blogs with a research perspective realize that.

Those of us on this and other sites who make comments are not representational of the general population. We are simply another one of those special interest groups.

"we" and "they" .....

Gus.How can you have a research perspective when you have your head in a sand dune. You never answer the hard questions. You wax philospically about many subjects but fail to deal with any facts. Here are some for you to chew on.

1. The Port of Prince Rupert has no more effect on Prince George than the Port of Vancouver has on Kamloops. A few extra trains a week . Thats it.

2. Containers that are loaded in Prince George and railed to Pr Rupert while good business for CN Rail and the Prince Rupert Port, actually reduces truck traffic to Vancouver, and therefore reduces jobs. So we can say that the Port in effect has a detrimental effect on jobs in this area.

3. The CN Intermodal Warehouse on River Road is and has been empty for over a year. It has had very little business since it has been built. From a business point of view this project has been a failure.

4. In addition to the CN Warehouse the other major warehouses in Prince George are also down dramatically business wise. This means that business in general is down in Prince George.

5. The Boundry Road Cut-Off is nothing more than a thinly disquised effort to establish a light Industrial Park at taxpayers expense.

6. The hype about Prince George and the Transportation Corridor from Prince Rupert to Edmonton is highly over rated. There has been approx 20 Major industries shut down along this so called corridor in the last 20/25 years. There has been no new industry built along this corridor during the same period. The Railway and Highways have been here for 100 years, and the Highway to McBride , Edmonton, was completed in the mid 60's. No new industry has located along this stretch of Highway since it was built.

7. The population in the North Central Interior has been decreasing for the last 10 years, along with school enrolments etc; the trend is expected to continue for at least another 10 years.

8. The only growth industry in Prince George is Funerals, Old Folks Homes, and Government workers.

9. The Airport Runway expansion is a total $36 Million bust. We have not one (1) specific plan for the utilization of the runway to date.

10. The Co-Generation scheme to be built at Lakeland Mills was thought up by a lunatic, planned by a fool, and will be implemented by Court Jesters.

11. Prince George is a small town, with big town aspirations. It has a small town inferiorty complex, and is therefore always trying to make itself more than what it is. It is actually pathetic to watch.

12. The Majority of people in Prince George go to work every day, raise families, and pay their taxes. They do not deserve to be ripped off by Civil Servants who have no respect for their money. The very least Government people can do is respect its Citizens and try to give them good value for their hard earned taxes. Whats the chance of that happening.

13. The mere fact that a civil servant gets paid approx 35% more than a private worker for a similar job, should give you some indication of how bad this bloody system is screwed up.

14. There is no **real** potential of getting oil out of the Nechako Basin. Canadian Hunter Oil Explorations got out of that area in the 1980's and turned all their drilling information over to the Provincial Government. Even with $50 Million dollars offered by the Province to entice Companies to move into the area, there were no takers.

15. Unless something happens soon the big expansion of the smelter at Kitimat will not happen. There has been no word of the new smelter since Alcan was sold to Rio Tinto.

16. All the hype of lumber sales to China are mostly BS. Even though we sold more lumber this year to China than to Japan we made more money on the Japan Lumber. Once the price of lumber rises, sales to the USA,and Japan will increase and China will be a faint memory. They will continue to buy off grade lumber the same as they always have.

17. Contrary to popular opinion the HST petition was a huge success, with in excess of 650,000 signatures collected. At this point it has not had the desired effect on the Government, however they will have to recind the tax, or they themselves will be recinded.

18. Have a nice day.

8. The only growth industry in Prince George is Funerals, Old Folks Homes, and Government workers.

So what do we do Pal. We tried a ratepayers association and got no were. The Miller addtion group was a suprise so all there is HOPE.

But don’t let Gus discourage you Pal. He has a lot of philosophical ideas but no plan. Remember he has told us that taxes in Prince George are not higher then else where.
cheers

Hey, who here has a plan other than less taxes??????

I als did not say that taxes here are not higher than elsewhere. I said they were not the highest. I gave the information I based it on. So far, no one has given us any information that supports the notion that they are the highest or even near the highest.

Go to it, you have the floor. Give us your opposing information.

Palopu has not new ideas. Palopu does not even support projects A and D and F and states that he supports them because of this that and the other thing.

He takes every single idea or action and tells us why it will not work or why it has not already worked when enough time has even passed in most cases for the action to be determined a success or failure.

Gus. I try to point out why some of the projects will not work. I think that it is necessary to have this point of view out there, rather than everyone walking in circles with bowed heads, humming and hawing, and agreeing with each other.

There is no point of you or others using the age old argument that these projects need time to develop, or they would have developed sooner if it hadnt been for the world recession, etc; The fact of the matter is they are failed projects.

The Airport Expansion went ahead without any long term planning on how they would achieve their goals, other that a vague reference of getting 2% of Anchorage Airport Business. They did not have one person working at Airport, or on the Board of Directors that had one iota of how to set up and run a major Airport Operation, with International Cargo Planes, and Passenger Planes, Cross Dock Operations, Pilot domiciles, etc; etc;etc; All they could do was build the runway and so far that is all they have done. In addition they have increased the Airport Improvement fee since 2003 from $5 to $10 to $15 to $18 dollars a flight. Built an International area in the Airport that is seldom used, and added parking spaces. Cost over $50 Million . Big frigging deal