Qualla: George Massey Tunnel

George Massey Tunnel: Introduction

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit harrysaxon, CC BY-SA 3.0. On 31 March 1964, a man named George Massey handed over a dollar and became the last person ever to pay a toll at the Deas Island Tunnel. He had spent years as the member of the legislature for Delta arguing that his constituents deserved a permanent crossing of the Fraser River instead of the Ladner Ferry, and the tunnel he got was, by any measure, a remarkable piece of engineering. He did not live to see it carry his name. Massey died in 1964, and in 1967 the province renamed the crossing in his honour — which means the man who paid the final toll was also the man the tunnel was eventually named for, a tidy piece of symmetry that almost nobody stuck in the southbound queue is thinking about.

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Image: harrysaxon | CC BY-SA 3.0

George Massey Tunnel: Six Boxes on a Barge

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit waferboard, CC BY 2.0. The Massey Tunnel was the first structure in British Columbia built using immersed tube technology, and the method is worth picturing. The tunnel was not bored through the riverbed. It was cast on land in six precast concrete sections — each 344 feet long, 78 feet wide, and 24 fe...

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Image: waferboard | CC BY 2.0

George Massey Tunnel: The Lowest Road in Canada

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Illustratedjc, CC BY-SA 4.0. At its deepest, the roadway runs about 22 metres below sea level — the lowest road surface in the country, and the only road tunnel in Canada that goes beneath sea level at all. The tube itself is 629 metres long, a single structure divided down the middle by a concrete wall so t...

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Image: Illustratedjc | CC BY-SA 4.0

George Massey Tunnel: What It Is Resting On

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Illustratedjc, CC BY-SA 4.0. There is a problem underneath. The tunnel was designed in the 1950s, when seismic engineering barely entered the calculation, and it sits on a layer of river sediment roughly 600 metres thick before anything like bedrock appears. In a major earthquake, that sediment could liquefy...

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Image: Illustratedjc | CC BY-SA 4.0

George Massey Tunnel: Swing Gates and Bike Buses

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Illustratedjc, CC BY-SA 4.0. The tunnel has been fighting its own capacity since almost the moment it opened. On 28 January 1981, a reversible lane system was introduced, part of a $2.5 million program that had already added a bus lane to the approaches. At peak hours, a line of swing gates squeezes one dire...

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Image: Illustratedjc | CC BY-SA 4.0

George Massey Tunnel: The Tunnel After This One

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Illustratedjc, CC BY-SA 4.0. Replacing the Massey Tunnel has consumed nearly two decades of provincial politics. A plan to widen it from four lanes to six surfaced in 2006. In 2012 the premier announced a full replacement within ten years, and by December 2015 the government had committed to a $3.5 billion b...

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Image: Illustratedjc | CC BY-SA 4.0