New Surrey coalition to push for light-rail transit south of the Fraser
Ai??Dianne Watts gets it, but Daryl Dela Cruz doesn’t.
Rail for the Valley gets it, but TransLink doesn’t.
The rest of the world gets it, but the SkyTrain lobby doesn’t.
Financial managers in most major cities around the world gets it, but BC’s Auditor General doesn’t.
Isn’t interesting that while the rest of the world plans and builds with modern LRT, a cadre of elites in our little niche in the world want much more expensive mini-metro instead and they don’t give a damn about the taxpayer.
Welcome to “Lotus Land“, where ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ planning seems to be the order of the day.
New Surrey coalition to push for light-rail transit south of the Fraser
Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts would like to see light rail connect transit corridors in Surrey. Above, a Bombardier Flexity Light Rail Vehicle or tram
Photograph by: City of Surrey, PROVINCE
Surrey business and community groups are launching a new campaign to get light-rail transit on track for south of the Fraser.
The Surrey Board of Trade announced a new coalition ai??i?? Light Rail Links ai??i?? which is joining the call for an LRT solution to the regionai??i??s lack of rapid transit infrastructure.
Mayor Dianne Watts has been pushing for years without success for approval of an LRT line rather than a SkyTrain option. She wants to see three light-rail corridors connecting Surrey town centres: one between City Centre and Guildford, along 104th Avenue; one connecting City Centre to Newton, along King George Boulevard; and one connecting Surrey to Langley along the Fraser Highway.
Without new transit investment in the near future, Board of Trade CEO Anita Huberman said, ai???our ability to attract businesses to Surrey will be compromised. If we donai??i??t have good transportation, which is the foundation of our economy, it will suffer.ai???
Increased traffic in Surrey as the population grows is a very real threat, she added, noting it took her 50 minutes by car to get from South Surrey to the Board of Trade office at 104th and 144th Avenues.
Light Rail Links stressed that Surrey ai??i?? the fastest-growing municipality in the region ai??i?? is expected to grow 50 per cent to 750,000 residents by 2041. Yet it has not had any significant transit infrastructure in almost 20 years. Less than seven per cent of the $6.6 billion spent on rapid transit in the Lower Mainland has gone south of the Fraser.
Surrey residents are fed up with the lack of action on transit, said Elizabeth Model, CEO of the Downtown Surrey Business Improvement Association.
ai???Everyone is frustrated. Weai??i??re the last one in the pecking order [to get transit upgrades], but weai??i??re the largest economic engine in the region.ai???
The bus-based system is unworkable for residents without cars, said the Surrey Crime Prevention Associationai??i??s Karen Reid Sidhu.
ai???Youth are struggling to get around the city,ai??? Sidhu said, noting her 240 youth volunteers find it hard to make it to their commitments via transit. It takes some up to 1A? hours by bus to get from Central City Shopping Mall to Cloverdale.
Mayor Watts said it was time for city residents to speak up.
ai???They need to let their voices be heard,ai??? she said in an interview.
From government and TransLink, Watts said, ai???there needs to be a recognition that in Surrey, we are building a city. Seventy per cent of growth is coming from south of the Fraser and we need that infrastructure.ai???
Scott Olson, a realtor and past president of the Fraser Valley Real Estate Association, said light rail was also the cheaper option.
ai???For the price of one extension of SkyTrain, we could create a complete infrastructure with LRT.ai???
Fleetwood Community Association president Rick Hart said commuters and seniors in his neighbourhood were poorly served: the Fraser Highway B-Line is often full when gets to Surrey via Langley, and buses and SkyTrain pose mobility and safety issues for seniors.
ai???LRT is something that will assist those people and help them age in place,ai??? he said.
Other citizensai??i?? groups have already been working on the issue. The Rail for the Valley Society has been advocating for a light-rail passenger train system running on the existing Interurban line out to Chilliwack.
But not all Surrey community member endorse light rail.
The citizenai??i??s group Better Surrey Rapid Transit makes a case for SkyTrain as the better option for the region, arguing LRT will get half the ridership of a new SkyTrain line and will continue to cause congestion as it runs along existing roads.
ai???Current options look forward to this cityai??i??s transportation needs to 2041 … but do not look forward to what the needs will be in 30 to 50 years and beyond,ai??? Better Surrey Rapid Transit member Daryl Dela Cruz said in an email.
ai???We want to tell Mayor Watts and TransLink that the solution that Surrey needs is bigger than what everyone wants, and weai??i??re advocating for that bigger solution that Surrey needs ai??i?? an expansion of SkyTrain.ai???
Learn more about Light Rail Links at www.lightraillinks.com.
Learn more about Surreyai??i??s light rail plans visit surrey.ca/RapidTransitNow.
Ai?? Copyright (c) The Province
Wow. Mr. De La Cruz’s half-heart argument against LRT is pretty sad:
”
The citizen’s group Better Surrey Rapid Transit makes a case for SkyTrain as the better option for the region, arguing LRT will get half the ridership of a new SkyTrain line and will continue to cause congestion as it runs along existing roads.
“Current options look forward to this city’s transportation needs to 2041 … but do not look forward to what the needs will be in 30-50 years and beyond,” Better Surrey Rapid Transit member Daryl Dela Cruz said in an email.’
NO transit agency looks to a region’s need 50 years and beyond anymore. It’s impossible to determine how the region will change in 50 years. He is advocating building transit that may or may not be needed 50 years, but will require significant capital to maintain. The TTC is already spending a good chunk of their budget maintaining the subway system, and it’s well used.
Yeah ridership may be higher with grade-seperated transit, but an LRT network will serve more people than one skytrain extension. It’s a no-brainer, LRT has to be the preferred choice for Surrey. Local transit must take priority of over regional transit. Too much money is spent of catering a small number of long-distance travellers while the local travel suffers.
It was very disappointing to see Mayor Watts’ bashing of sky train “edited out” of the revised story, today. Both The Province and Vancouver Sun which are the two major newspapers in the Lower Mainland are on the verge of bankruptcy.
This is not surprising. The major media (Vancouver Sun in particular) here are not the critical voice of reason. The gutless and muzzled media here are not exposing corruption and stupidity, and people are tired of reading the propaganda and crap in these newspapers.
Both of these newspapers will lay off reporters soon and my guess is that stooge reporters such as Kelly Sinoski who conveniently missed the major paper selling headline from Dianne Watts blasting TransLink will be one of the first to go along with her editor, Harold Munro. Kelly in her latest piece of garbage on transit is bending the truth with the contention that there are 500,000 pass-ups annually on Broadway.
There are minor delays of two to six minutes for one hour daily because the sky train dumps 300 people every ~five minutes at Commercial Drive and the 99 B-Lines can only accommodate ~100 people. So it takes three 99 B-Line buses to clear the jam – over six minutes. If TransLink gave riders going to UBC an alternative route operating on West 4th Avenue and reduced the headway to 90 seconds for one hour, the transit demand would meet the supply. Transit crowding would disappear on Broadway.
If TransLink did this, all the bums whose salaries depend on more sky train would be out of a job at TransLink and the City of Vancouver which has an entire department dedicated to sky train expansions. No conflict of interest?
Instead of focusing on stories on how we can tax taxpayers more, the critical media voice of reason (if there were one) here would be telling us to fire the “fraudsters at TransLink”. TransLink at the end of the day is just a bunch useless parasites living off taxpayers, and the 500 do nothings at TransLink are overhead costing us $70 million annually (500 deadbeats * $140K on average per deadbeat).
It costs TransLink twice as much per capita to move transit riders than in the rest of Canada, and its operating budget will approach $2 billion to move about 350,000 people by 2020 (Edmonton has a $200 million budget to move about 100,000 people). Right now with UBC out for the summer the 99 B-Lines are mostly empty and even when they are full occasionally, the trolley buses operating in parallel to the 99 B-Lines are mostly empty.
More funding for TransLink? Kelly can go – you know where. So can the Vancouver Sun.