When city councillors in Abbotsford got together early this month and laid the tracks for the city’s transportation future, it was another sign of the growing gap between provincial transportation policy and public opinion south of the Fraser.
Abbotsford gave the thumbs up to a plan to explore light rail transit throughout the region. Yet the concept is nowhere to be found in the provincial government’s long-term transit plan, released earlier this year.
That plan proposed $1.1 billion for a six-kilometre SkyTrain extension in Surrey, yet promises for communities like Langley and Abbotsford are slim.
“It kind of left us not certain how we would factor into the plan,” Abbotsford Coun. Lynne Harris said. “It wasn’t really enough for us.”
Instead, Abbotsford formed a regional transportation committee and pledged to work with its neighbours in Langley and Surrey to establish a light rail network.
“We thought if something was going to happen in the future that is going to address our needs, we’re going to have to start visioning that now,” Harris said.
Light rail, she said, is fast gaining momentum as a viable transit alternative.
“All you have to do is sit on the freeway,” Harris said of the unending traffic congestion in and out of her community. “I think there’s a lot of frustration. Twenty years from now, we’re going to have chaos if we don’t create some alternatives.”
Surrey council candidate Paul Hillsdon is staking his campaign on light rail. Using numbers from the province and TransLink, Hillsdon has come up with his own transit plan that would see the $1.1 billion SkyTrain extension nixed in favour of 43 kilometres of at-grade light rail.
“The fact of the matter is SkyTrain is very expensive,” Hillsdon says. “With light rail, we can get it to all of the major communities for the exact same price.”
Politicians in Langley and Surrey, too, have come out in support of light rail, despite the province’s apparent push in the opposite direction.
“There’s a huge disconnect between what the transportation minister seems to think he wants for the area and what the actual residents want for the area,” Hillsdon says. “That’s what it comes down to.”
Irwin Loy reports for Vancouver's 24 hours.
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leftofcentre
3 years ago
LRT has to be the future
The Liberals would do well to listen to the local population on this one, as LRT will be a hot election issue south of the Fraser. Surrey alone will surpass the population of Vancouver soon, yet it only receives 25% of the Translink funding Vancouver receives. Skytrain is expensive and only effective at moving people between regional centres. Surrey's greatest challenge is not how to move people between cities...it's how to move people within Surrey itself.
There's no reason Langley & Abbotsford couldn't benefit from this as well. The Interurban is capable of linking to Scott Road Station, as well as the Canada Line in Richmond. And this could be done within 2 years at a fraction of the cost of Skytrain.
Grumpy
3 years ago
There is more!
There is more. For the cost of 6 km. of SkyTrain $1.1 billion), we could reestablish the former interurban route from Vancouver to Chilliwack, including a new multi track drawbridge across the Fraser River!
Track-sharing, with LRT sharing the mainline railways tracks has been a great success in Germany and is cheap to build compared to green-fields LRT construction and SkyTrain metro construction. Costs, including vehicles could be as low as $7 million/km. to build!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsdJPaih0Fw
Have a look!
leftofcentre
3 years ago
Grumps is Right...
Grumpy has summed up the big picture completely. What makes LRT such a bargain is that it makes efficient use of existing rail infrastructure. It allows for double-tracking to make way for freight trains, and uses existing railway crossings to stop traffic.
I'm hardly a NDP fan, but Gordon Campbell could lose big in Surrey (including Kevin Falcon's seat) if he doesn't make a concession on this before May. The LRT lobby here is large and organized. All Carole James has to do is talk big on LRT and stop opposing the Port Mann Twin to make inroads in Surrey.
Grumpy
3 years ago
Karlsruhe................
..........is where transit specialists are going to learn about modern LRT.
To make a long story short, to reduce costs, attract ridership, and expand public transit, Karlsruhe's transit company experimented with track sharing with the mainline railways in the early 90's. The results were breathe taking. In 1993, after a few months of operation and eliminating just one transfer point ridership on the "two system" LRT increased from 488,400 a day to 2,064,000 (423%) weekdays; 39,000 to 263,000 (675%) on Saturday; and from 6,200 to 228,000 (3,669%!) Sunday!
Today in Karlsruhe, one can board a tram on-street, in the downtown and alight on-street on the outskirts of Stuttgart, some 210 km. away, with the tram acting as a streetcar (on tram tracks), LRT (on reserved rights-of-ways), and a commuter train (on the mainline railway), and back to a streetcar again! All this for an average cost of $8 million/km. complete! CHEAPER THAN NEW HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION!
By comparison, SkyTrain is a very expensive museum piece or as the Germans would call a "Gadgetbannen".