The Regina Bypass - Corruption or Incompetence

Anyone who thinks that government corruption or incompetence is limited to Americans is only fooling themselves. Canadian Conservative governments are just as bad only on a smaller scale. I will ignore the Ford government in Ontario. That is their problem as an election has been called and they have a chance to get rid of him.

As I write the Premier of Alberta, a Trumpanzee at heart, and her Minister of Health are credibly accused of allegedly interfering to throw government contracts for surgical units to a much higher priced bidder, a donor to the UCP. It is being investigated.

Outline of the Regina Bypass

Last October I blogged about the Global Transportation Hub a multi-million dollar Saskatchewan Party project which has yet to be completed and will likely cost close to a half-billion dollars when all is said and done and everything is taken into account. It is Mickey Mouse compared with The Regina Bypass, with a cost of close to $2 billion and a 30-year maintenance contract with the major construction consortium. All the official press releases sound as though it were the greatest gift to Regina ever.

 The Regina Bypass is approximately 44.3 kilometers (about 27.5 miles) long [with 12 km of service roads]. This four-lane twinned highway serves as a connector between Highway 1 and Highway 11, effectively forming a partial ring road around the city of Regina, Saskatchewan. The bypass was officially opened to traffic on October 29, 2019, after being constructed as part of a larger infrastructure project that began in 2015.

One of several such interchanges on the Regina Bypass

These intersections and interchanges are designed to improve traffic flow, enhance safety, and provide better connectivity around Regina. The bypass effectively forms a partial ring road around the city, connecting major highways and improving access to key areas

It was called a P3 project, Public Private Partnership and build using DBFOM or Design, Build, Finance, Operate, Maintain. The collaborative approach facilitated the development of innovative, cost-saving solutions, such as Canada's first diverging diamond interchange in a rural area. [Is this a BFD or spin?]

It started out as a $400 million project and quickly mushroomed into a $1.88-billion-dollar project. Four companies formed a joint venture called Regina Bypass Design Builders (RBDB), which was responsible for the design and construction of the bypass infrastructure. For good reason, they downplayed the major company in the consortium Vinci Infrastructure Canada Limited. Vinci is a huge French headquartered company with over 186 divisions in Canada alone. Google Vinci and lawsuits. They are in court in a number of countries for everything from alleged price fixing to alleged use of slave labour. 

The Coquihalla Highway, built in three stages, between 1978 and 1990 in mountainous terrain that is 8 times longer (186 km) and 50 times more difficult to build, cost less than the Regina Bypass. Total cost of the three stages cost CAD $848 million, equivalent to about $1.62 billion in 2019 dollars. 

The Regina Bypass was built on flat mostly unoccupied prairie. It was supposed to draw traffic from going through Regina which has been a bottleneck for truckers, especially for years at the Victoria-Circle Drive intersection. There was sufficient space at that intersection to build a proper cloverleaf for about CAD $250 million that given traffic projections would have been good for thirty years. Since there are no services for truckers east of the bypass, they still need to come into the city to the Husky truck stop at Victoria and Prince of Wales. From there they either backtrack to the bypass or continue through the city on the old route.

Another interchange

There is so little traffic on the bypass it has been estimated that for each vehicle that the cost is about CAD $10,000. The motorcycle clubs love it as they can race on an empty highway on the weekends.  

After a two-year investigation involving thousands of documents, about 7,500 hours of work, and interviews with over 40 people, including former Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, the RCMP determined that the evidence did not support laying any charges

The provincial government acknowledged making mistakes in the land acquisition process, with Don Morgan, the minister responsible for the GTH, stating that the government "did a poor job in assembling the land" and moved too slowly, allowing speculators to buy and resell the land at much higher costs to taxpayers.

No shit, Sherlock.