Happy New Years, Or Is It?

Transit news in the Vancouver metro region in 2015 was dominated by the TransLink plebiscite and despite over $12 million dollars spent to bolster the ‘YES” side the vote was decidedly against giving TransLink any more tax money.

What is even more tragic is that the politicians, bureaucrats and academics who supported the “YES” side have remained deaf to the results and except for a few senior staff let go by TransLink, nothing has really changed and it is business as usual; planning a $3 billion subway here and a $2.5 billion poor man’s SkyTrain disguised as LRT there. Any shift from previous planning has been met with deaf ears.

The province has also jumped into the transportation fray by announcing a $3.5 billion bridge to replace the perfectly good George Massey Tunnel, simply because Liberal supporters South of the Fraser want a bridge, but not to relieve congestion as one embarrassingly out of touch, Delta Mayor Lois Jackson claims (for in reality congestion will be just moved to the Richmond side of the bridge) but to deepen the Fraser River to allow Cape Max colliers and tankers to load, the premier’s favourite election gimick, LNG as well as dirty bitumen oil-sands oil from Alberta and even dirtier Montana Coal at Surrey Fraser Docks.

The river bottom needed to be deepened by at least two metres below the the top the Massey Tunnel and in BC, one gets what one pays for – donate to the BC Liberals and viola, a new taxpayer funded $3.5 billion bridge so big ships can ply the Fraser to Liberal friendly dock owners.

And here I thought the Roberts Bank Super Port was built to give a viable alternative of large ships traveling up and down the Fraser, silly me.

Vanity projects and ongoing photo-ops, generally describe transit planning in the region and real needs like a crumbling Patullo Bridge and a downright decrepit Fraser River Rail Bridge replacements are all but ignored.

Sadly, this will be transit planning until the next provincial election, the tried and true “rubber on asphalt” tactic to garner votes and nothing more.

The future for good economic and affordable transit is bleak and sadly, I see no difference with the NDP, who also remain extremely myopic on the subject.

The past two decades in Metro Vancouver have been the “Locust Years” where transit money has been lavishly squandered on questionable vanity projects.

A happy new years it is not, as Metro Vancouver has reached the nadir of good regional planning and if the same bunch of mayors that have allowed this travesty to happen, ever get to run TransLink, god help us all!