Surrey won’t build light rail without help
Mayor says taxpayers have poured too much into TransLink
SURREY (NEWS1130) – Dianne Watts wants light rail for her city as soon as possible, but would Surrey be willing to pay for it alone?
http://www.news1130.com/news/local/article/280453–surrey-won-t-build-light-rail-without-help
A candidate for mayor in Vancouver has promised a city-initiated streetcar system, but Watts says Surrey is still waiting for something in return for all the money it has poured into TransLink.
"Folks south of the Fraser have continually paid for infrastructure, whether it's in Richmond, Burnaby, Vancouver, wherever, we continue to pay without the expansion of our own system."
She wants more benefit for the taxpayer dollar. "I mean I looked at my tax bill and me personally, I pay $916 a year to TransLink."
Watts says TransLink is open to the idea of light rail and points out the transit authority will have to do something sooner rather than later. "I come back to the fact that over the next 15 years, 70 per cent of the region's growth is going to be south of the Fraser."
Watts wants to get light rail out of long term plans and make it a short term requirement, but she admits there's a major hurdle in the way of transit expansion in BC's second largest, and fastest growing city. "Nothing is going to move forward unless the Evergreen Line gets built."
So in the meantime, Watts says she's going to work with local mayors and the transportation ministry to come up with alternative funding options for TransLink to make sure service can be expanded everywhere.
Those ideas may include advertising and station naming rights.
It is worth noting even misisng skytrain and road work we shouldnt be spending that much on them. Especially with how little of the skytrain line is actually here.lets also not forget we haven’t even added fares spent here in surrey. Which I’m willing to bet will really push it way up since its a fair amount of people needing 1 zone or 3 zone. Mean while in Vancouver I’m willing to bet majority of people getting tickets there only get 1 zone with a couple 2 zones and very very few 3 zones.So take the fact every 3 zones worth two 1 zones it really helps surrey even with less riders then in Vancouver.I for 1 don’t doubt that north of fraser doesnt pay its fair share. Both Vancouver and Burnaby have 2 skytrains lins and crap loads of buses (Vancouver could be called 3 but I wont count it.)