AdiA?s TransLink? Letters Published in the Postmedia Press
The following letter has appeared in the Postmedia press including the Vancouver Province and the Delta Optimist and should start some lively debate.
A valid question is asked; “Why is TransLink planning for transit on Broadway, when they know it will be decades before anything is done; or, is there already a secret agreement involving Vancouver, the province and TransLink to build a near $4 billion SkyTrain subway under Broadway as per the George Puil GVRD/BC Transit/Provincial Government deal that saw the birth of TransLink.”
If this is so, it is time for South Fraser municipalities to leave TransLink and fast!
Say goodbye to TransLink?
By Malcolm Johnston, The Delta Optimist
Editor:
It seems TransLink is busying itself with the Broadway corridor and one must ask ones self, why? TransLink can’t even source $400 million to complete the funding for the never to be built, Evergreen SkyTrain Line; why then waste time planning for transit options on Broadway when those plans will be stale-dated long before there is any funding for transit improvements on that route.
Transit planning is good for about five years and we build a metro line route every decade, by the time the Broadway project comes around, any planning done now will have to be redone.
What’s TransLink’s game?
The most likely answer is that TransLink’s ponderous bureaucracy must look like it’s actually doing something, lest politicians start asking uncomfortable questions about too many employees, etc.
There is no money for a subway under Broadway and TransLink continues to inflate light rail’s construction costs to the absurd, means nothing will be done to improve transit on Broadway for decades to come.
Politicians south of the Fraser should take note, instead of planning for viable planning solutions for Greater Vancouver and South of the Fraser, TransLink continues its flim-flam planning for Vancouver and should ask themselves; “Would not a South Fraser transit authority do a better job in providing a viable transit system?”
Sadly, TransLink’s planners are little more than bookworms in the library, hiding their ineptitude with dated precedents. They have made the planning process a giant machine, where an ossified central bureaucracy reigns amid mountains of paper, with a result of an expensive and dysfunctional transit system, where despite ever increasing taxes, there is little improvement to the actual transit system.
Is it time to say adiA?s to TransLink?
Malcolm Johnston
Light Rail committee/Rail for the Valley
In January, the Langey Advance printed a much shortened version of what I wrote their Editor in November:
The Editor, Langley Advance,
The phrase “Moving Forward plan†was mentioned in your article “TransLink tax appears doomed†(Langley Advance, November 19). I believe that in order to be “Moving Forwardâ€, one needs to “go back†a little bit, to see where one has been. With your indulgence, I would like to do this in some pre-TransLink time frames of 21 years each, gong back to 1947 – 1968 – 1989 and then 2010.
In 1947, oil was discovered at Leduc, Alberta. The huge impact of that gusher (and those that followed) on Western Canada was likely the main reason for the short-sighted decision to abandon passenger services on the BC Electric Railway in the Fraser Valley in 1950. The Trans-Canada Highway Act was promulgated in 1948, and the system was in the planning stages. Diesel fuel was going to be abundant and dirt cheap, eh? This passenger service abandonment followed the provisions of the 1907 Langley Rail, Power and Light Bylaw – the “charter†of this railway line – and soon after that, it was forgotten, also when the City of Langley separated from the Township of 1955. We heard last year (2009) that the 1907 Bylaw is still valid in the Township. Was the City of Langley ever advised of its existence, and that it may also still be valid there? This affects the construction costs of railway crossings, likely also the one that is now being proposed at 196th Street. Perhaps both municipalities should pay nothing for it. And the similar Bylaw that the City of Surrey has, might suggest that they pay nothing.
In 1968, a substantial part of the BC Electric Railway was relocated through the District of Surrey, City of Langley and Township of Langley. To my knowledge, it was only Mayor Poppy of the Township of Langley who had the foresight to schedule a meeting with BC Hydro, in which a promise was obtained for a railway overpass at the Langley Bypass (although that was located within the City of Langley) “to be built whenever traffic would warrantâ€. I guess that as only a few trains per day were envisaged, vehicular traffic was meant. To date, after 42 years, nothing has come of this promise. Methinks traffic warrants it.
I am not sure if those Township Council minutes are still enforceable on BC Hydro, in terms of the 1907 Bylaw. I can only guess that if the City of Langley had known about that promise, and had been aware of the 1907 Bylaw, they would also have been able to solicit a similar promise for a railway overpass on 200th Street. That would have been their obvious “due diligence†for the long term view and good of the City. Perhaps at that time, the City fathers still had post-partum depression, or they were still navel gazing about streetlights……
In 1989, the Socred provincial government of the day launched the “Freedom to Move†program, with many colourful glossy brochures. The promise of lots of work for consulting engineers in fact brought my family to BC from Yukon that summer. Under the Hon. Rita Johnstone, Minister of Transportation, this was to solve future traffic congestion in the Lower Mainland, continuing the Flying Phil Gagliardi highway building booms that were so typical of that party.
Under the “Freedom to Move†program, the Surrey-Langley Transportation Study was launched. It recommended quite a number of highway improvements, including a railway overpass on the Langley Bypass. Instead of a railway overpass on 200th Street, (not possible due to the short-sighted build-up around it, which was acknowledged), one was proposed on 196th Street, with the complete closure of the Fraser Highway railway crossing. We all remember that the Socreds imploded soon thereafter, and that the second NDP regime started a decade of general decline in construction activity, except for some vibrating aluminium hulls. Also, the Greater Vancouver Regional District was handed down various transportation responsibilities that the provincial government did not want to have any more, hence GVTA / TransLink. And of course, the BC Transportation Financing Authority, a para-government agency that handled Design-Build-Develop projects that e.g. sold off the highway right-of-way of Highway 1 to a developer called Grosvenor International, to build a “fiascoâ€. (The BC Liberals, when they came into office in June 2001, and the Township of Langley, both had a chance to stop it, but did not.)
Now, in 2010, we have new new buzz word – the “Moving Forward planâ€. TransLink now acts, through its CEO, as if it calls all the shots, while the Ministry that is now known as MOTI (instead of MOTH) – Highways has now become Infrastructure – is not even mentioned in your article, as if there are no provincial highways through our municipalities. You may remember that at one time in the early 1990’s, the Township of Langley almost seceded from the GVRD (now called Metro) and thought about joining the regional district comprised of Abbotsford and others to the east. Only “water†kept the Township in the GVRD. It is surely no wonder that all mayors south of the Fraser River are now baulking at the request for more tax or fees or tolls into a gaping sinkhole, with a stated purpose to build a “Nevergreen Line†with outdated technology, way over there in Coquitlam and Port Moody, on the other side of the Fraser River, where many of us never go or want to go.
Someone else called TransLink a virus the other day on your pages. Because TransLink remains to be an unelected body, while the Provincial Government with all its shortcomings still remains to be one, I would like to give that virus a name – the North Fraser Virus. What medicines are helpful to combat viruses? Isolation is perhaps one of them. Perhaps the GVRD (now called Metro) should split in two, so that those of us on the south side of the Fraser River could pursue out own transportation future.
The South of the Fraser Rail Task Force has already brought these municipal councillors closer to each other. I guess they now have a better and broader view of each other’s real needs, which are different from what the North Fraser Virus dishes up. I would therefore encourage all of them, from Delta, White Rock, Surrey and the two Langleys, to stand together more, and to think seriously about such a split – and to make it a reality in 2011. Now, there’s an early New Years Resolution! This split would be more logical than the Langley split of 1955, which in my view, should be undone. We all have streetlights.
Jacob de Raadt, Langley City, tel. 778-277-2736.
To the article above, I would respond: Let the people on the north side of the Fraser River do what they want, but not with my tax dollars. I believe the people of Langley want the Community Rail back after an absence of 61 years. That is completely ignored by TransLink..
Adios amigo, adios my friend, The road we have travelled has come to an end.
I guess TransLink’s unveiling of the study for the tunnel to UBC unveils a promise for the upcoming provincial by-election in Vancouver-Point Grey, for which the date has not been set.