Justin Trudeau and Christy Clark announce agreement for new SkyTrain cars and SeaBus, but no new transit line

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      Today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and B.C. premier Christy Clark annouced a new cost-sharing agreement on transit.

      It results from $460 million for transit in B.C. in the recent federal budget, as well as the new Liberal government raising its contribution from 33 percent to 50 percent for municipal transit projects.

      Provinces are still on the hook for 33 percent but municipalities are only required to come up with 17 percent.

      Under today's deal, more than $900 million will be spent in the following areas:

      • New SkyTrain vehicles for the Expo, Millennium, and Canada lines.

      • A new West Coast Express locomotive.

      • A new SeaBus.

      • Upgrades to SkyTrain stations.

      • Design and planning work for rapid transit south of the Fraser River and a future extension of the Millennium Line along Broadway.

      • New buses, HandyDart service, and technologies for B.C. Transit, which serves transit users outside of the Lower Mainland.

      “Canadians have asked us to reduce congestion and commute times in their cities," Trudeau said in a news release. "This investment in public transit will help the people of British Columbia get home to their loved ones faster. It will also help to grow the middle class by improving business flows in municipalities while reducing environmental damage.”

      What it won't do is ensure that Surrey mayor Linda Hepner will fulfill her promise to deliver light-rail transit to her city by the 2018 election. 

      Surrey council supports building three lines from Surrey Centre that would extend to Guildford, Newton, and Langley City at a cost of about $2.1 billion.

      Last year, Lower Mainland mayors backed this idea as well as a proposed extension of the Millennium Line from VCC-Clark Station to Arbutus Street. This subway under Broadway was expected to cost $2 billion.

      Voters prevented those projects from going ahead when they rejected a plebiscite last year calling for a 0.5-percent increase to the provincial sales tax.

      The Trudeau government is helping to pay for a new SeaBus after voters elected three Liberal MPs—Pamela Goldsmith-Jones, Jonathan Wilkinson, and Terry Beech—to represent North Shore voters in the 2015 election.

      All three were named parliamentary secretaries in the Trudeau government.

      Trudeau's maternal grandfather, James Sinclair, represented the North Shore in Parliament for nearly two decades.

      Meanwhile, five of the six MPs elected in Delta and Surrey also sit on the Liberal side of the house, as do four of Vancouver's six MPs.

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