3 Reasons Willis Point Road is the Wrong Choice for Landfill Access
Within the next 2 years, the Capital Regional District (CRD) plans to move garbage truck access to the Hartland Landfill facility from Hartland Avenue to Willis Point Road. Yet the CRD has failed to provide a compelling reason for this proposed change and there are serious public safety, environmental and ethical concerns they have neglected to consider.
Key Facts:
The number of commercial vehicles accessing the Hartland facility throughout the year is around 3,200 vehicles per month. Residential vehicles accounts for an average of 6,200-8,000 vehicles per month. (1)
If commercial vehicle access is shifted to Willis Point Road, you can expect to see on average 14 additional trucks per hour accessing the landfill between 7 am and 4 pm weekdays and an additional 5 trucks per hour accessing the landfill between 7 am and 2 pm Saturdays. (2) This accounts to an average of 110 large garbage trucks daily or 12 trucks per hour during landfill operation.
Future planning will also include moving all residential landfill access to Willis Point Road by 2040, effectively removing all landfill traffic from Hartland Avenue. To put this in perspective, according to 2019 data, the Hartland facility sees an average of one inbound vehicle per minute during both the weekday and Saturday. (3)
So why should the public be concerned?
#1 Public Safety:
This proposal will have serious safety implications for bicycle, pedestrian and vehicular traffic in the area.
Willis Point Road is utilized by people from all over the CRD and already sees close to 3,000 vehicles per day in the summer months, which includes a mix of residents, commuters, and recreational users accessing the provincial parks, municipal parks and roadway. (4)
Willis Point Road itself is heavily used by recreational and competitive cyclists for training and events such as the popular Tour de Victoria and Xterra Victoria. The Interurban bike trail also continues along this portion of Wallace Drive and every day approximately 400 cyclists make the turn off West Saanich Road to Wallace drive, with close to half of those cyclists continuing up Willis Point Road. (5) Hartland Avenue on the other hand, terminates at the Landfill and does not see a significant amount of bike or recreational traffic.
This area is also enjoyed year-round by residents from all over the CRD with Willis Point Road acting as the primary access to the Mount Work Regional park, one of the largest regional parks, and Gowlland Tod Provincial Park, one of the last remaining natural areas in Greater Victoria. Due to popularity and limited parking capacity, users are often required to park along the shoulder of Willis Point Road which has no sidewalk and has limited visibility putting pedestrians at risk.
Traffic along Willis Point Road continues to increase at an annual rate of 10%, moving access to Willis Point Road will add a significant number of commercial and residential vehicles and it will create 3 additional left turns for landfill users. An ICBC collision study between 2014-2018 shows a significantly higher risk at the newly proposed intersections compared to historical data on Hartland Avenue (see Table 4.2 below). Additionally, Willis Point Road in susceptible to steep sections of black ice in the winter which claim several vehicles ever year. These single vehicle, non-fatal incidents are likely not reported to ICBC.
#2 GHG Emissions:
This proposal excuses the long-term environmental impact future generations will be responsible for.
In March 2019, the City of Victoria declared a climate emergency, promising to accelerate climate action efforts to achieve net zero carbon emissions. Since then there has been a clear lack of action taken by the CRD.
Landfill users commonly drive 10 to 15 kilometres to reach the facility, most often traveling from the South Island and Westshore communities. Changing the road access to Willis Point Road will increase the distance these users must travel by a further 2km.
It has been estimated that during landfill operating hours, moving only the commercial vehicle access to Willis Point Road is anticipated to increase vehicle emissions by 15%; with the relocation of all landfill vehicle traffic to Willis Point Road by 2040, this emissions increase is predicted to increase by up to 30%. (6) In addition, the infrastructure required to relocate access to Willis Point Road through construction and the clearing of land will also have an environmental impact that the CRD has neglected to consider.
#3 Premature:
The CRD staff rationale for proposing the change of access is premised on eventual expansion of the Landfill’s footprint, which has not been approved by the CRD Board or the Province.
CRD staff argue that access from Willis Point Road is necessary to access new “cells” in the northwest corner of the existing Landfill footprint, but the CRD has not demonstrated that it could not continue to operate the Landfill effectively by continuing to use Hartland Avenue as the access point for garbage trucks. For decades the Hartland facility has opened and closed landfill cells without the need to adjust traffic access. Much of the movement on site is done by facility staff and not through outside users accessing the landfill to drop off waste.
Since the 1970’s, Hartland Avenue has been a safe and accessible access to the Hartland facility. The Hartland facility has the funds, the necessary aggregate onsite, the engineering resources and the ability to continue to fill the existing footprint from Hartland Avenue. However, the CRD seems to prefer a “solution” that will cause major negative consequences that are neither environmentally sound nor in the public interest. Changing the landfill access to Willis Point Road will forever change this recreational area, turning it into an industrial corridor.
Sources:
(1) Bunt and Associates, Hartland Landfill Alternate Access Study. (June 29, 2020).
(2) CRD Staff Report/Bunt & Associates, Hartland Traffic Study - Follow Up Report to the Environmental Services Committee meeting. (September 16, 2020).
(3) Bunt & Associates, Transportation Impact Analysis Final Report. (September 2, 2020).
(4) Ibid.
(5) Ibid.
(6) Bunt and Associates. Hartland Landfill Alternate Access Study. (June 29. 2020)