The BC NDP’s transportation critic says Lower Mainland public transportation needs major upgrades and that the most urgent needs are in the Metro Vancouver area south of the Fraser River.
“South of Fraser transit would be my first choice, then (replacement of the aging) Patullo bridge,” said Harry Bains, the MLA for Surrey-Newton.
Bains was speaking at a public forum hosted by the Fort Langley-Aldergrove NDP in Aldergrove on Saturday. Local NDP candidate Shane Dyson also spoke, and the meeting was chaired by the constituency president, Brian Harder. There were about two dozen people present and questions were taken from the floor.
Bains said there were merits to the various options being considered by the TransLink board, which include SkyTrain, light rail and rapid buses, and he would prefer to leave it to the mayors on the TransLink board to “agree on the technology. But in the meantime we could add more buses, with dedicated bus lanes. We could do this very quickly.”
Bains said TransLink operating funding remains a contentious issue but that he would lean toward easing that burden by allocating a portion of the provincial carbon tax revenues to public transit and other “green” initiatives across the province.
He observed that about $500 million of the $1.2 billion collected annually in carbon taxes goes to corporations, through purchase of carbon credits.
“That was a bad decision made at the cabinet table that has cost us dearly. It is punishing (motor vehicle) drivers for not taking transit, without spending the money on better transit,” said Bains.
“The goal is to have fewer cars but we can only do that if we have efficient, affordable public transit.”
Dyson criticized the lack of long-range planning in public transportation in this province compared to other parts of the world.
“Many other countries have made good choices many years ago,” said Dyson. “But here the most telling conversation is always about transit; how it is near impossible to get to appointments in the next town.”
Questions and remarks from the audience covered a gamut of subjects, from the merits of various technologies to the revival of the old Interurban rail line. While there was disagreement on the subjects, almost everyone seemed to concur that south of the Fraser received less then its fair share of transit services.
Bains said that south of the Fraser receives one hour of service to the 1.9 hours received north of the Fraser, adding that, “82 per cent of the trips made south of the Fraser remain south of the Fraser.”
