Adios South Fraser Rapidbus
One has to laugh at the mind games being played by TransLink. First, they call express bus service Rapidbus, then theAi??so called rapid bus isn’t so rapid as one would think as South Fraser transit users will be dumped onto the Skytrain Line, reminiscent of South Delta and South Surrey express bus passengers are dumped onto the Canada Line. Such planning is so outdated it is laughable and it seemsAi??what hasAi??found not to work elsewhere is claimed revolutionary by TransLink.
The birds who call themselves transit planners at TransLink just haven’t a clue what they are doing and the only expertise they have is to squander the taxpayers monies on more obsolete transit infrastructure.
The sad part is that mayor Fassbender is completely out of his league when he discusses transit, as he has been ill advised on the issue. Certainly his provincial Liberal party credentials also are playing a part in this fiasco with his past, all too inept, pandering to TransLink, supporting higher taxes and user fees to pay for the politically inspired Evergreen SkyTrain Line.
As yea sows, so shall yea reap.
Scrapped bus route a sore point for Langley mayors
Ai??The RapidBus project will be running eventually, Langley’s mayors insist
Ai??By Matthew Claxton, Langley AdvanceMay 3, 2012
Langley’s mayors are expected to pull together to try and prevent the Carvolth Park and Ride from becoming a white elephant project.
Township Mayor Jack Froese said he will soon meet with City Mayor Peter Fassbender and both Langley MLAs about the scrapped plans to run RapidBus service from the facility.
“This is our only real link to TransLink,” Froese said this week at the site of the future park and ride, under construction on 86th Avenue east of 200th Street.
The park and ride was envisioned as a new transit hub that would serve both Willoughby and Walnut Grove, as well as providing a key transit service not seen in more than a generation. In 2008, the provincial government announced that Langley would get a RapidBus service, buses that would run from Langley down the widened TransCanada Highway and over the new Port Mann Bridge, connecting to SkyTrain service in Coquitlam. With new bus lanes and a special underpass to allow fast access to the highway, the province promised that the route would take less than half an hour.
The RapidBus service was in TransLink’s plans, but last month the mayors’ council voted not to increase property taxes to pay for that route, among other projects. The Langleys and White Rock voted in favour of the property tax increase, as much of the new service it was to pay for would have come to the under-serviced South of the Fraser region.
“This is vital to Langley,” Froese said. “This is not just a bus route that they’ve taken off.”
Fassbender described the RapidBus as “non-negotiable” and said that the program hasn’t been cancelled, merely put on hold.
Meetings with the minister for transportation and others will be held to talk about the problem, Fassbender said.
He and most other mayors were adamant that the province had a role to play in funding TransLink, but earlier this year the B.C. government ruled out virtually any source of new funding, from tolls to carbon tax transfers.
With the $54 million park and ride to be finished soon, along with an underpass that is being built to connect it to Walnut Grove, the project is too big to let go to waste, Fassbender said.
In addition to its transportation implications, the project was to be a growth generator and was intended to allow for a denser neighbourhood in northern Willoughby.
The Township has planned the area as “transit oriented development” Froese noted.
Without RapidBus and its connection to SkyTrain, a block of housing directly connected to the Park and Ride may not go forward as quickly, and it could even disuade developers from building nearby, Froese worried.
Along with Froese and the mayor of White Rock, Fassbender said there have been a lot of discussions with other mayors about getting the money from somewhere to pay for the project.
The Carvolth Park and Ride will open sometime next year, and is expected to be part of the region’s transit system even without the RapidBus money, according to TransLink spokesperson Drew Snider.
Six bus routes will serve the hub, including the 595 route that heads over the Golden Ears Bridge and connects with the West Coast Express train. The new underpass will allow buses to avoid congestion at the 200th Street highway interchange.
In addition, there will be the 388 to 22nd Street Station, the 595 to Haney Place, and the 501, 509 and 590, all travelling to Surrey Central. The C62 will serve Langley Centre and Fort Langley.
30 mins from Langley to Coquitlam? That doesn’t sound very good…
I wonder how long before Langley tries to get out of MetroVancouver…
Yes but you’re missing the point. If Translink is getintg a large percentage of its revenue from motorists, encouraging people NOT to drive means reducing their income. The solution is they need more money so they tax motorists more which angers more people. If again less people start to drive then we have this:1) Revenue from motorists go down2) Revnue period to Translink goes down3) Demand for transit goes up4) No money to expand transit because less people drivingAll people are saying is that they need a DIFFERENT source of revenue that isn’t heavily weighted towards people driving. The truth is everyone including you guys need to do some reasearch as to how transit is run in Japan. In Tokeyo and Osaka the transit systems are profitable. There are 0 subsidies and the system is self sufficient without tax payers needing to throw in millions of dollars per year. It seems North America just doesn’t get it and keeps subsidising mass transit left right and center which is just purely unsustainable. I’m not saying we need to encourage motorists.Quite the contrary. I’m a large advocate for densification and encouraging transit ridership. I love being able to park my car and walk everywhere I need to go or take transit to wherever I need to go beyond walking distance. But I’m also a realist and to expect car traffic to drop is quite frankly an unrealistic pipe dream. It will never happen. At the same time though putting a large portion of revenue onto motorists yet trying to encourage less people to drive just seems, with lack of a better word, stupid.As for dropping tolls, dropping tolls will not encourage more driving. What it will do if done right is spread out the driving. A person that is going to drive south of fraser will drive no matter what because as you well know, the vast majority of people in Surrey and Langley have very little to no access to efficient transit. Dropping tolls won’t make any difference whatsoever. What it would do though is encourage people already driving and trucks already delivering to use alternate routes and lessen the pressure on current infrastructure.Lessen tolls on the existing tolled infrastructure, introduce tolls on exsisting infrastructure. ALL exsiting infrastructure. I think they should put a minute toll on Granville Bridge. Cambie, Burrard, Oak Street, Knight Street, everything. Lions Gate. You name it.If everything is tolled then the tolls are spread across the region evenly and people will use alternate paths because tolls no longer become a factor. It would also technically increase mororist revenue because nobody will be avoiding’ tolls. And there should be a toll charge on public transit that transitions over the tolled infrastructure. You jump a bus from North Vancouver to Vancouver? Goes over the Lions Gate bridge? It gets tolled too. With the new compass card they could implement that easy.Why should anyone get off scott free is the way I look at it. If you are taking transit and that transit uses infrastructure it should have to pay just like every other car and truck out there. And those transit users should also pay. Even fair taxation and revenue generation. That also means those people that stop driving and suddenly start taking the bus are STILL PAYING for infrasturcture in their fairs.