An Important Message From Malcolm Johnston – A 30 Year Veteran Advocating for LRT

The South Fraser transit customers and taxpayers are about to get shafted again with regional transit investment, as South Fraser politicians are sleeping walking into a well laid trap set by TransLink and the City of Vancouver. The trap is simple, agree to build a $4 billion subway under Broadway now and promise ‘rapid transit‘ for the South Fraser sometime later, decades later!

The Broadway SkyTrain subway, which has become the mantra of Vision Vancouver, its mayor Gregor Robinson and councilor Geoff Meggs, close confident of BC premier in waiting Adrian Dix, that will pauper TransLink and curtail transit development south of the Fraser.

With all the hype and hoopla of sideshow ‘pitchmen‘, TransLink and the City of Vancouver are practicing the fine art of Goebbelesque propaganda, by repeating ad nauseum, anti light rail rhetoric to such a degree, the public are believing the nonsense, that pretends to be facts.

ai???If you tell a SkyTrain or subway lie big enough and keep repeating the SkyTrain or subway lie, people will eventually come to believe it. The SkyTrain or subway lie can be maintained only for such time as the TransLink and the City of Vancouver can shield the people from the political, economic and/or transit consequences of the SkyTrain or subway lie. It thus becomes vitally important for TransLink and the City of Vancouver to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the SkyTrain or subway lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of TransLink and the city of Vancouver.ai???

With a compliant mainstream media and co-opting of special interest groups such as the bicycle lobby, the public are being fed a growing list of misinformation, which if done in other jurisdictions, could lead to criminal action.

TransLink and the city of Vancouver are now armed with several ‘cheapie‘ consults, including one from KPMG, who are not transit consultants and the Sauder School for Business at UBC, which again not transit consultants, calling for a subway under Broadway. In the real world, a proper transit consultation on the scale of Broadway would cost several millions of dollars, not thousands of dollars and done by firms with a demonstrated proficiency in urban transit design and planning, as well with LRT and light metro.

Why focus on Vancouver’s proposed Broadway subway instead of LRT and the RftV/Leewood report?

In a province with limited financial means, a $4 billion or more subway under Broadway would mean no major ‘rail‘ transit investment South of the Fraser River for at least twenty years! The large operating and maintenance costs of a subway would also greatly hamper any investment in public transit South of the Fraser as all financial resources would be poured into transit infrastructure supporting the existing metro lines to desperately try to funnel as many transit customers as can to give the impression of tax monies well spent. In the end, TransLink will collapse under the shear weight of financial distress and political and bureaucraticAi?? incompetence.

What to do?

RftV members must ‘grill‘ upcoming provincial candidates on regional transit and South Fraser transit issues. RftV members must not and I repeat must not give a free ride to NDP candidates as the close relationship between Geoff Meggs and premier in waiting Adrian Dix means the NDP will bend towards a metro solution for Broadway. We have to remember that the NDP in the 1990’s, flipped flopped from LRT to SkyTrain for the Millennium Line, due to political pressure from friends and finical backers. The NDP still refuse to believe, this flip-flop on Broadway – Lougheed Rapid Transit Project helped propel the NDP into a two seat ‘rump‘ after the 2001 provincial election.

This is a message that must be delivered to the NDP and the BC Liberal Party candidates in the upcoming election;

For the cost of a bored subway under Broadway to UBC we can build:

1. A BCIT to UBC/Stanley Park LRT/tram system, using the Lougheed Hwy., Broadway, 10th Ave., Main St. and Hastings.
2. A Whiterock to Surrey Central LRT, using 152nd St., the SRR of BC and King George Hwy.
3. The ‘full build’ RftV/Leewood interurban (which would enable Whiterock transit users direct access to downtown Vancouver via the interurban.
4. A brand new Patullo road/rail bridge, replacing the present decrepit river crossings.

(Please cut and paste the preceding and email it to every regional politician and bureaucrat who work in Delta, Surrey, the Langleys and Abbotsford.)

In theory such a network could provide UBC with direct rail service to Whiterock, Surrey, Langley, Abbotsford and Chilliwack. Such a network would attract far more new transit customers than a Broadway subway by providing an attractive alternative to the car.

This is the type of vision needed for the Metro Vancouver area, not the self indulgent Vancouver attitude that; “I wanna subway because other world-class cities have a subway and I will hold my breather until I get one.”

Write letters, phone radio stations, demand answers from out politicians, bureaucrats, let us not snatch transit defeat from the jaws of victory.

Finally, beware of people calling themselves transit experts and transit analysts – especially if they seem to be of high school age. In BC, anyone can call themselves a transit expert and many who do, seem to be working at TransLink or surrogates of TransLink. A real transit expert never advertises the fact.