Summary of first round of Ph2B Public Consultations

Post date: Sep 26, 2011 9:53:20 PM

On Sep 14, a meeting of the PCG (public consultation group) was called by the Phase 2B study team to present a summary of the public consultation events held in June 2011, including the results of comments provided online. Sustainable Solutions participated in this meeting. These events constituted round 1 of a proposed 4 rounds of public consultations.

In this meeting a new study team leader was introduced as the original team leader (who was also the leader of the original Ph1 study) had left Genivar the consulting firm.

Some frustration was expressed by the participants that they were receiving a filtered view of what the study team deemed as the relevant comments. For instance the detailed minutes of the public meetings show dozens of comments related to alternatives and questioning the need for this project yet this was not mentioned once in the summary that was presented.

After this summary, the public participants focused their energies on asking for a review of the justification for the project and for consideration of other options (other bridge locations or a downtown tunnel to the existing Macdonald-Cartier bridge).

It was reiterated by the study team that those topics were out of the scope of Ph2B as they were considered to have been dealt with in previous phases of the study.

What is becoming clear to the PCG participants is that their input is only being solicited in terms of helping to focus on a choice between corridors 5,6 and 7. Any discussions about the needs an objectives for a bridge or other alternatives to the bridges as current proposed would have to be pursued in other contexts outside of the Ph2B study.

The meeting ended with the PCG participants asking to be informed of what studies (truck studies were specifically named) were planned to be undertaken prior to the next round of public consultations. The PCG also asked to be given an opportunity to comment on the content of those studies.

The next public consultations and PCG meeting are scheduled for Feb 2012.

Follow this link to the project website to see summaries of the June 2011 public consultations.