Wow this has only taken 35 years that I know off.
I, for one have been saying this for years, that we need a route around the city, and city has ignored the idea.
But it is only a "study", and we all know how much gets accomplished by our wonderful city of Prince George .

Study...study....study, someone makes money

" Identify and evaluate the existing and expected future movement of dangerous goods .."

Would the Boundary Road that is on several proposals to be built west the of PG Airport, qualify as an "expected future movement" route?

It would connect 16 East and 97 North through an industrial center. Or is 1st Ave and a right at the BX Pub better for downtown revitalization? Tough study.

There is a Design Consultation Study at City Hall on Cameron Street Bridge. November 22nd. Industry gets the first swipe at 2:30 (naturally) the affected residents can listen to the spin at 4:30 and the general public is slated for 6 P.M.

I will bet you a dollar to a doughnut there will be not any discussion regarding hazardous goods travelling via Carney Street, First Avenue and Fifth Avnue.

Bulling forth with the Cameron Street Bridge only maintains hazardous goods travelling through the City and further delays a "ring road."

It is difficult to observe this further "faux pas" on the part of City Council.

"It is difficult to observe this further "faux pas" on the part of City Council."

Observe the faux pas of all the officials with the new million dollar pedestrian tunnel under 20th Avenue!

Now the paper is featuring stories about vandalism, graffiti, flooding, and people refusing to use it and still crossing the highway!

Now the need to construct another berm and find vandal proof lights (good luck!) becomes obvious!

I hate to say *we told you so* but, you know what? *We told you so.*

Now they will go and build another one under the Bypass at 8th Avenue, guaranteed!

Job security! When proper overpasses are finally built the tunnels can be backfilled with dirt...No sweat!

I am retiring soon I would like to get onto a study, any study, seems like a good secure source of income.

didn't UNBC do a dangerous goods route report 2 yrs ago?

As usual we are having a big discussion on Dangerous Goods and the need for a Dangerous Goods route, and few if anybody has a clue as to what dangerous goods travel through the City. I suspect that most of this information is already on file at the PEP office.

Most of the Dangerous Goods used by the Pulp Mills come in and go out by rail and therefore would not be involved in this study. The balance of the Dangerous Goods are produced right here in good old Prince George..
(1) Diesel and Gasoline at the Husky Refinery on Pulp Mill Road.

(2) Hydrogen Peroxide at the FMC Plant on Pulp Mill Road

(3)Sulphur Dioxide and Sulphric Acid at the Marsulex Plant, BC Rail Industrial site.

These commodities are trucked and railed to various citys within BC and Alberta.

There would be some trucking of diesel and gas from the refinery in Ft Sask Alta to and through Prince George.

All the service stations in Prince George are refueled by tanker trucks through out the City , and therefore a circle route would be useless for service stations.

The Dangerous Goods route through Prince George at present is:

(1) Highway 16 East to 1st Avenue, and then Victoria St., to 97 South and 16 West.

(2) Hiway 16 East to 1st Avenue, and then Cameron St., Bridge to Pulp Mills and the John Hart Highway.

(3) Hiway 16 East to Old Cariboo Highway and 97 South or 97 North to 16 West

(4) Highway 16 West to Ferry Avenue to Queensway through South Fort George to 1st Avenue then 16 East.

(5) Highway 16 West to 97 North to Pulp Mills and John Hart Highway.

There you have it in a nutshell. Because Prince George is located in a BOWL and most of the trucked dangerous goods are produced in the bowl you would actually have little or no use for a ring road.

Good post Palo

Good enough for some YDPC ... but not to those who want to ensure that we know waht is really going on, not just be told in some gneralities about waht appears form that post to be some seat of the pants system.

Interesting post Palopu ... made on several occasions before.

Can you help me with one thing please?

Can you give me or show me a web site, or tell me which single source in the City I can go to where they can show me the following information:

� What dangerous goods are manufactured here
� What is the final destination of those goods
� What dangerous goods are manufactured elsewhere
� which final destination do they have in this city
� which final destination do they have that require them to go though this city
� for each, identify the quantities and frequencies of shipping
� for each dangerous good, what are the consequence of an accident such as a derailing (as we have recently witnessed) or a motor vehicle crash or an airplane crashing? For each of those, what is the probability of such an incident based on past experience in the North American context and thus, what is the risk associated with each transfer of such material.
� On a map, where are the actual routes designated as dangerous good routes.
� On a map, where are the signs which indicate to the public and those transporting the materials through the city where those routes are
� Who in this city is responsible for monitoring the system of transit of dangerous goods in order to enforce it.
� Who in this city is responsible for designing/selecting the system and its routes and for compliance to the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act and Regulations? (actually I know the last part of that since it is available through the Regulations, although it varies from province to province)
� When something changes with the above information � a new dangerous good is introduced, the frequency of transport changes, etc. what is the responsibility of the person or company who instigates such a change.
Finally, while the regulations are silent on containment with respect to restricting transportation through urban areas, the Act is not silent on it. The Minister is responsible and he/she takes advice from an Advisory Council set up for that purpose. Part of that Council�s responsibility is to deal with transport through an urban area.

BTW, I do not know why you exclude rail each time you make the post. The Act does not exclude rail. In fact, there was a special regulation put in place dealing with solving the problem of transporting dangerous good by rail through Toronto which, I believe, resulted in removal of much of it whatever was still going through the Front Street area.

For the purpose of this exercise, we can simplify it by keeping the obvious situation of the need to refuel service stations and the other obvious situations such as people driving around town with 400 litre fuel tanks on the back of their pickups.

So, I await your informative post which will tell me who is primarily responsible for ensuring that due diligence is practiced with respect to routes of dangerous good though this urban area, whether road, rail or air.

oops ... I forgot water, but I assume that is not really a factor here ... don't see too many barges plying the rivers ....

;-)

Division 3 Routes, areas, vehicles and times
13.7 Determinations � routes, areas, vehicles and times
The Australian Act and Regulation is not silent on Routes:

From their regulations:

The Competent Authority may determine:
(a) that particular dangerous goods may only be transported by road on a particular route, or in or through a particular area; and
(b) that only a particular vehicle, or kind of vehicle, may transport particular dangerous goods by road; and
(c) that particular dangerous goods may only be transported by road at a particular time; and
(d) that unodourised LP Gas may only be transported by road on a particular route, or in or through a particular area.

http://www.comlaw.gov.au/comlaw/Legislation/LegislativeInstrumentCompilation1.nsf/0/C2E94C52B86906CDCA256F71004D7580/$file/RoadTranRefDangGoods97.pdf

IMO the dangerous goods factor is only a fraction of the reason why one would build a ring road. One also has to consider the effects on the whole transportation system not just a single aspect of it.

What about growing congestion on highway 16 from the casino through Peden Hill and on up through College Heights? How does this affect the entire transportation network in Northern BC when all traffic is funnelled in and tied up in light to light traffic as the area grows as a centre of residential traffic?

Does it pay to mix industrial traffic with city traffic, or can infrastructure improvements get better value for their dollar building ring road segments rather than radical and expensive options within the city? Does the city plan to have an industrial site outside of the city air-shed at some point in the future� and if so will it be the traditional one road in� or will it be integrated into the rest of the regions transportation infrastructure for maximum competitive effectiveness, and thus maximum chance at any industrial park development being able to attract new businesses to locate in the designated industrial park.

Is a 17 stop light through road and a maxed out air-shed a good sell for this region in our logistics infrastructure to handle future business growth? Some of these lights change so fast that a loaded truck can barely get rolling aging before its red and they have to stop. It costs industry in wasted fuel polluting the city bowl, and it costs industry the wages to sit at 17 intersections.

If proper infrastructure can save 30 minutes here in PG, and 5 minutes here and there then eventually that all translates into a far more efficient economy as a whole. This would spell trouble for the American forest companies for starters, next would be the ports of Vancouver and Seattle that would be looking over their shoulders.

If PG and PR port wishes to steal the container cargo from Vancouver and Edmonton then we would be far more competitive with at least the southern section of a ring road to efficiently move cargo from East and South to the West. How many cargo containers destine for the Port of Prince Rupert will not be interested in CN Rail's piss poor service or cost and thus need to travel through PG on truck? Small now, but as the trade route gets more established and trading relationships grow (effective marketing) this ring road ya/ney decision will be either an asset or a liability for this region...

IMO trading companies, shippers, and even possible plant relocations will all look at the 17 traffic lights and think this is a region not interested in investing in the kind of infrastructure they would find profitable. In their world a 6-lane freeway down south saving countless minutes and thus dollars could add up to millions when they make their business decisions. We don't need 6 lanes up here in the North, but what we do need is less stop lights impeding flow of traffic and that is hard to do when the main highway runs smack through the centre of town.

Time Will Tell

PS IMO the city will hire a consultant from out of town and the consultant will not be able to see the bushes for the trees and thus not have a clue as to what would be most effective for tomorrows growth potential. I would not be surprised if the consultant came back and said Queensway and Cameron Street Bridge make the most effective route for Dangerous goods through PG�.

Still a good post Palo. Owl can make it complicated, but it doesn't change the basics of what DG has to be moved in this town. The rest is window dressing and what ifs. No one is going to move the railroad out of town.

"No one is going to move the railroad out of town."

They likely won't. But, someone must still be in charge and that someone must know what is happening and that someone must be able to reassure the general public that we are relatively safe.

Palopu's words simply do not suffice. It is not iwndow dressing. It is the essence of how the system works. More and more we are seeing that systemns are failing.

We don't even have the simplest element of public information available in this city. Signage!

http://www.city.red-deer.ab.ca/Connecting+with+Your+City/City+Services+and+Departments/Emergency+Services/Dangerous+Goods+Routes.htm

Is is too much to expect of this City to have something like Red Deer in place here?

"I would not be surprised if the consultant came back and said Queensway and Cameron Street Bridge make the most effective route for Dangerous goods through PG�."

If the consultant is restricted to looking only at existing infrastructure, that could very well be true.

As you nicely identify in the rest of your post, Chadermando, one must look at these in an integrated fashion rather than a focused fashion restricted to dangerous goods.

As is true in other areas of managing people and systems, when the operation works well, safety typically works well as well.

In the reverse, any unsafe operation is often too costly to operate due to down time, maintenance time, etc.

But then again, much of our society is reactive rather than proactive. Prevention is not something we come by naturally. We are risk takers.

We readily accept costs associated with accidents and we have some level of insurance coverage for that.

We do not readily accept costs associated with prevention of accidents and, other than our almost unique situation with ICBC, insurance typically does not pay for prevention other than through reduced premiums for those who can demonstrate they have reduced risk in their operation.

While there is persistence in making First Avenue a transportation route, we are missing the point of reclaiming a vital downtown and acess to the rivers by the general public.

There was an interesting response on the Citizen website by a gentleman from Winnipeg who said that City had been successful in gaining access to their rivers. It became parkland instead of industry and became the focal point for the downtown area and for tourists.

Industry and the CN does not need to hog our most valuable asset.

The number of cities in North America who have reclaimed river or water edge property which was traditionally used by water, rail and road traffic and had primarily industrial uses could fill a day for each calendar day in the year.

On the other hand, the number of cities which have not made such reclamation is are virtually non-existent. Typically, they are communities which have not seen much growth nor changes in their industrial base.

Just a few here in BC ....

Vancouver - False Creek area
New Westminster - The quay
Kelowna - the north side of the lakeshore
Nanaimo - the residential development and marina as well as parkade with shops along the walkway.

I suspect that the City is now looking into a proposed Dangerous Goods route route as part of their application for funding to the Provincal Government from the money available thru beetle program. This will also allow them to try and get funding to upgrade River Road, get another $2Million for the Cameron St., Bridge, and put in the road off Queensway on lower Patricia Blvd to First Avnue, overpass 1st Avenue and into the CN Rail Intermodal Yard.

IMO they are using the Dangerous Goods Route as a ploy to get funding and at the end of the day it will be a moot point as to whether we get a better route than we presently have.

The Prince Rupert Container Terminal is a Ship to Rail operation for Containers to the US Midwest. We have already received all the business that we will ever see from this operation. We have had three trains per week through Prince George since Oct30th. Did anyone see them, or hear them??? 4000 TEU'S since the Terminal opened. 92 hours transit time from Prince Rupert to Chicago (first train) which was a record.

The longest train to date, 11000 feet departed Nov 16th this would be the equivilent of apprx 185 rail cars or 370 40ft Containers. Approx 2 miles in length. Did anyone see it, did they hear it. Did they notice any increase in pollution?

The CN Reload, Intermodal Yard will have a little more impact on traffic in Prince George, however at the end of the day it will increase traffic to the level we had prior to CN'S purchase of BC Rail, and overall will be insignificant.