Two Years Since the Leewood Report and the Silence is Deafening!
It has been two years since Rail for the Valley released the historic RftV/Leewood study and the silence has been deafening. The RftV/Leewood study is light years ahead of anything that TransLink has produced, yet it has been given the silent treatment; “being sent to Coventry“, while TransLink squanders tens of millions of dollars promoting its pet SkyTrain mini-metro on various routes in Vancouver and Surrey.
In true TransLink form, bureaucrats are being forced to plan for LRT in Surrey at the behest of pro-LRT Surrey mayor, Dianne Watts, but with little enthusiasm and what is being planned for is classic TransLink, an ill-designed LRT, treated as a poor-man’s SkyTrain only costing a little less than SkyTrain to build.
It has all been done before, but from TransLink’s point of view, if you are successful bamboozling regional politicians about light rail and SkyTrain, andAi??why not, most regional politicians are profoundly ignorant of public transit and only support those projects which look good politically.
TransLink has every excuse thinkable to discredit the RftV/Leewood study, with the latest bit of nonsense so pathetic it would be laughable it it were not so sad. “We will not consider any rapid transit line that can’t achieve 10 minute headways or better“, was the latestAi??moan.
RftV has never claimed that the proposed TramTrain service was rapid transit, but a regional railway, that would operate LRT compliant vehicles that could operate as a train (interurban) or as a tram/streetcar. We find the proposed 90 minute schedule from Chilliwack to Scott Road Station (a commercial speed of 90 kph)a viable proposition and considering the almost daily traffic jams on the number 1 highwayAi??between the Port Mann Bridge and Abbotsford, the RftV/Leewood TramTrain service would make a viable alternative for many people. But not for TransLink, who continue to plan for ‘pie in the sky’ SkyTrain service from Langley to UBC!
Fiscal reality is just not in TransLink’s lexicon!
Here we have a ‘shovel ready’ transportation plan, with a starting cost less than one half of that of the Evergreen Line, servicing far more communities, left to molder on a shelf because it can’t run at 10 minute headways. Even the deluxe version of the RftV/Leewood Report hasAi??electric service to downtown Vancouver at less than $1 billion! The truth is easier to fathom, LRT in any form makes highly paid TransLink’s bureaucrats at very nervous.
To completely ignore a study done by a professional transit consultant, without any honest discussion only shows how inept TransLink and its bureaucrats are and the taxpayer and transit customers South of the Fraser deserve much better. “Who is not afraid to bell TransLink?”
Memo to Dianne Watts: Get out of TransLink and fast! The know-nothings at this ponderous bureaucracy have only one goal, to greatly increase their political prestige, while at the same time greatly increasing their pensions, by continually planning for unaffordable and very dated SkyTrain mini-metro. Sadly, TransLink is incapable of doing anything else.
The Leewood Study:
Is the concept of TramTrain too difficult for TransLink to grasp?
