Evidence of meeting #58 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was projects.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Mayor, City of Surrey
Thank you. I think the operative word would be that we want to be at the leading edge but not the bleeding edge.
For instance, if you're looking at LED lights, the cost of that over a period of time has now reduced to where you could be a leader, and it's competitive, but right at the beginning sometimes you want to have the technology proven. The same would go for our trucks, our CNG trucks. We have a fleet of vehicles using CNG and you want to be at the front, but sometimes you want that technology to be at least proven to make sure that you're getting the value for money.
Do you have any other examples that you wanted to mention, Vince? No, okay.
Conservative
Mayor, City of Burnaby
From the perspective of the City of Burnaby, we're happy to be involved in pilot projects that allow us to test new technologies or emerging technologies, and oftentimes cities will do that. We will work cooperatively to attempt to integrate something like, for instance, LED lights or LED streetlights, and then later it will become the industry standard.
We were the first city to take on a major project on infill fields. Originally they were all Astroturf, all carpet laid on cement. We took on a massive project in which we looked at sand-filled infill fields that now have become the industry standard, but there was some risk involved in being one of the first cities to experiment on a major basis with that type of field. Later on other cities followed us.
We take turns taking the lead on issues and we each want to be creative and innovative in the way we approach them, but large commitments in which we risk the major assets of the Lower Mainland on an emerging technology are not welcomed. We're looking to be cautious and careful because we are so concerned about ensuring that public money is used in the best way possible.
Conservative
David Yurdiga Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
My next question is to Mayor Hepner. Currently a lot of transit systems have difficulty breaking even. I don't think there are any that really break even. What type of revenue sources are there outside of ridership? Are you guys utilizing in-station retail facilities? How can you raise funds to make it more profitable or even to bring it to a break-even stage, because that's a huge burden on municipalities?
Mayor, City of Surrey
We would be looking at this as a way of shaping our community and managing our growth. Oftentimes at stations there are uplift opportunities around development, so utilizing land use as a tool for that would be the primary thing that we would be looking to advantage relative to the stations. The expectation with our 27 kilometres is that we will have 19 stations where we'll be able to look at opportunities for land lift.
Conservative
David Yurdiga Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Okay, thank you.
I would ask Mr. Corrigan that same question.
Mayor, City of Burnaby
I think that sometimes it's ironic that we talk about transit paying for itself when we don't do the same thing with roads and bridges. We expect that the benefit of huge subsidization and investment in roads and bridges ends up being an economic investment because we have more mobility and the ability to transport goods to move goods around our communities.
I think the same thing happens in regard to transit. Investments in transit have huge economic benefits, but they may not make it self-sufficient, as is the case with bridges and roads. They are not self-sufficient. They're a huge investment, but made for a larger economic purpose. Exactly the same thing happens in urban municipalities. Transit should be treated in the same way that roads and bridges are treated.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Okay, your time has expired.
I have a follow-up to a question that Mr. Yurdiga just asked.
Ms. Hepner, I know there's advertising that you can put on cars and at stations, what have you. Would you have any idea of what the percentage is of overall revenues? Is it big? I'm just trying to come up with a number more or less for my own information.
Mayor, City of Surrey
I wouldn't know that number offhand, but I know it would be small. When you look at our regional TransLink operation, it's bridges, it's roads, it's SeaBus, it's buses, it's HandyDART, it's rail, and it's light rail. That would be a very small component of funding.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Okay.
Mr. Corrigan, would you agree with that, or do you have any further comment?
Mayor, City of Burnaby
I would. I was the former chairman of British Columbia Transit operating all of our systems across British Columbia, and I can tell you that the revenues that are available even with extremely aggressive advertising programs are relatively minute compared to the budgets that are required to operate the system. It's a source of income that we don't leave untapped, but it certainly is not something that provides a panacea.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Okay. Thank you very much for that.
Ms. Young, you have five minutes.
Conservative
Wai Young Conservative Vancouver South, BC
Hello. Thank you again to the panel for joining us today.
I was particularly struck, Mayor Hepner, with your Surrey biofuel project. I know you mentioned it, but I'd like you to spend more time informing this committee about it, the process around it, what the intent of the project is, and what the outcomes are.
Mayor, City of Surrey
Thank you for the question.
We recently broke ground on the project. It will be the first closed-loop system in North America. It will collect the organic waste from the curbside; bring it to the facility; turn it into fuel that will fuel the garbage trucks that picked up the organic waste, as well as fuel the city's fleet of vehicles; and then the residuals will be used as an organic compound that will be of advantage to our agriculture or our landscape businesses. It closes that loop entirely.
Does that help?
Conservative
Wai Young Conservative Vancouver South, BC
Yes, it does. Thank you very much, but can you give us a sense as to the budget and the timelines? How long did it take you to get to groundbreaking, which is where you're at, and what was the federal budget contribution?
Mayor, City of Surrey
The federal component of the funding is $17 million, which goes out to about 25% funding. I think it's a two-year process. I'm sorry, I wasn't at the beginning of the process, but it has been about two years.
City Manager, City of Surrey
Yes. I can add that the process was quite elaborate in the sense that first we determined if P3 was the right method. Then we did an international search to narrow down teams and we had over 10 responses, pretty much from Asia, Europe, North America, and Canada. Then the process went down to three main proponents that had the best business case as a team. Then there was the final selection, and as the mayor mentioned, now they're building the facility. The project includes them, basically.
The city contributes per tonne of organic waste it delivers and then the project guarantees a certain amount of gas coming back to us to offset the cost that we've paid for the tipping fee. Essentially, as the mayor mentioned, the gas is then used for the garbage trucks collecting the waste. We are already collecting all that waste, so we've established this as an area where the city took a risk for the private sector, where we guarantee the actual feedstock.
Two years ago we started getting our population ready to provide the feedstock, so the private sector doesn't have that risk, which is a risk that's easy for us to take, so that further reduces the cost of the project.
Now that we have closed on the project and we've selected the technology, we know we're going to have enough gas not only to fuel our garbage trucks that are collecting the waste.... That was an integral part, by the way, of getting citizens to understand what we were doing with the organic waste. When we rolled out the program a year and a half ago we reduced our garbage tonnage by half in the city of Surrey within two month's time. That was because there was a good understanding from the public that we are now adding value to something that was seen as waste before. This was valuable to the city, so everyone contributed.
The last component, which is quite exciting, is that with our district energy now in the city centre we're looking to use the excess gas, which is pure, clean gas, and carbon free, to help heat all our high-rises in our downtown.
Mayor, City of Surrey
At the end of the day when the facility is complete, there is a teaching component. We intend on educating our young people on how important it is and what it's all about. That was an important element for us to include in the construction piece.
Conservative
Wai Young Conservative Vancouver South, BC
Given that this is the first one of its kind in North America, did you find it was difficult to get the federal government to partner in this?
We're constantly hearing from the media and the opposition that this government is not interested in these kinds of innovative environmental projects, whereas, obviously, you've succeeded in attracting this level of commitment and funding for specifically this kind of innovative environmental project.
City Manager, City of Surrey
I can answer that question.
The federal government was in early, so we applied for the P3 funding and we knew we had a funding commitment, but of course all the homework on the P3 process had to follow through so it was crucial and very helpful to indicate to the City of Surrey there was help to do this biofuel and do things not necessarily the old-fashioned way, but to look at innovation.
That helped backstop the city to invest in the process, because there is an investment in time and money into the process and exploring it. But it paid off because we knew there was an early commitment by the federal government.
Conservative
Wai Young Conservative Vancouver South, BC
I'm getting signs that my time is up.
Thank you very much.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Yes, your time is up. We have bells coming at 5:15, and we have some committee business that we have to do.
I'd like to thank all of you for joining us today. Your input was very important.
With that, we're going to suspend to go in camera on some committee business.
Thanks again.