Login / RegisterEric Doherty and Andrew Murray: TransLink’s freeway push must be stopped
By Eric Doherty and Andrew Murray
TransLink has been crying poverty as of late, claiming that it does not have the money to keep a third SeaBus in operation. Never mind completing the long-promised Evergreen Line or providing enough buses to implement the planned U-Pass expansion. However, TransLink has lots of cash when it comes to freeway expansion.
TransLink is running full speed ahead with what’s being called the “United Blvd. Extension – North Fraser Perimeter Rd. Phase 1”. It would cost $150 to $175 million for a little stub of freeway and an overpass that competes with the Evergreen Line, for both money and passengers. It is also a climate crime, as government spending on roadway expansion is one of the major drivers of increasing greenhouse-gas emissions in Canada.
In case you have never heard of the North Fraser Perimeter Road, it is Premier Gordon Campbell’s little-known plan to push a freeway through downtown New Westminster.
The North Fraser Perimeter Road freeway is reminiscent of what Mayor Tom “Terrific” Campbell had in mind for downtown Vancouver in the early 1970s. Tom Campbell got run over by a major freeway revolt. Vancouver city council is now considering tearing down his legacy—the half-kilometre-long Georgia Viaduct, which never became the network of freeways he dreamed of.
Gordon Campbell gained de-facto control of TransLink when he kicked local politicians off its board and got his allies, such as the Vancouver Board of Trade, to help appoint the new TransLink board. As should be expected given the corporate interests who appointed them, the board is pushing ahead with changing TransLink from focusing primarily on transit to bulldozing communities and farms for freeways.
Of course, the TransLink board does have what it thinks is a great excuse—free money. They have managed to get a promise of $65 million from the federal government, but only if they spend it on this freeway overpass within a very tight deadline. This $65 million is public money that could be used for transit, improving rail infrastructure, or creating a short sea shipping network to get trucks off the road throughout Metro Vancouver. There is no “free money” when it comes to the public purse; the opportunity cost of not spending the money on something else always needs to be considered. If the deadline is missed, $65 million of our money will not evaporate; it will still be available to be spent on something worthwhile.
There are also local impacts to be considered. Any expanded roadway in a growing urban region like Metro Vancouver will quickly fill up, and create new bottlenecks and increased congestion. In this case, the short stub of freeway would just feed onto the existing street network in New Westminster. It is not much of a mystery what would happen when this “big pipe” narrows down to local streets. Then, of course, the traffic snarls and local pollution become an excuse for the next section of freeway pushing toward downtown New Westminster.
It is time to demand that our public-transit agency focus on providing public transit. It is impossible to create a good transit system without a clear commitment to putting transit first.
New Westminster city council may respond to pressure and block this proposal to put a freeway through residential neighbourhoods, including the high-density downtown core. The Mayors’ Council could also refuse to support any financial plan that puts freeway expansion ahead of transit.
In the early 1970s, when Mayor Tom Campbell’s freeway dreams were smashed, oil was cheap and nobody had ever heard of global warming. Now, the age of cheap oil is over and global warming has become a crisis that threatens our very survival. In the early ’70s people pushed for better transit instead of freeways because they wanted clean air and livable communities. These are still valid reasons, but we have much stronger reasons to do the same today.
You can submit comments about the proposed North Fraser Perimeter Road freeway on TransLink’s website.
Open houses are scheduled for this Thursday (November 18), from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., at the Justice Institute of British Columbia (715 McBride Boulevard, New Westminster), and the following Thursday (November 25), from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., at Place des Arts (1120 Brunette Avenue, Coquitlam).
Eric Doherty is a member of the Council of Canadians’ Vancouver-Burnaby chapter.
Andrew Murray is a member of the Council of Canadians’ New Westminster chapter.
It is counter intuitive, but regional transit like the E-Line leads to the creation of freeways and unsustainable urban sprawl. We would be better off hiring engineers who know what they are doing to run TransLink.
Technically incompetent individuals with Mickey Mouse business degrees at TransLink clearly do not have it figured out and are in it way over their heads. I don't care how many agree with me, regional transit is stupid.
How the hell sustainable is it to commute 100 km round trip daily on the E-Line? I work with people who take the Westcoast Express. They are out the door like a flash near quitting time and don't have time to finish up. Others have to cover for them to get the job done. Screw you, you're nothing but a bunch of deadbeats who don't do any work. Stay out in Coquitlam.
If you have documented evidence that the NFPR design and land acquisition is only for a "fully signalized, four lane road" with no phased plans for widening and interchanges then I will gladly admit my error. But I doubt that the NFPR is that much different from the SFPR given the huge price tag for this short section.
How do you blow $150 to $175 million on a short bit of ordinary road?
How in the sam hell can a transportation authority demand so much and give so little? Every time you hear their name in the media, there's a tax associated with it - property, gas, carbon, you name it.
And now they have "an idea" and are demanding more.
You know what - fuck translink. Figure out how to turn a profit like the rest of us and then come back to the table.
http://www.bclocalnews.com/opinion/108274824.html
SkyTrain is a metro and too expensive to extend into the suburbs. As SkyTrain is too expensive to extend, the only way to improve regional transportation is to build new highways to accommodate the extra traffic created by densification caused by the metro.
Thus it can be said building SkyTrain, such as the Evergreen Line promotes new highway construction.
Light rail, being much cheaper to build and more flexible in operation, can be affordably built into the suburbs, thus providing quality public transit to areas SkyTrain cannot. Being able to penetrate affordably into the suburbs, makes LRT a practical alternative to new highway construction.
http://www.railforthevalley.com/studies/
The Rail for the Valley Folks are on the right track, so to speak!
Screaming "its a freeway, its a freeway" everytime a new road or highway is built completely distracts from any credibility you may have. There is not a single freeway in BC, and won't be until Highway 1, Port Mann is expanded in 2013.
All you whiny transit hippies should be cheering the fact that a full roll out of the NFPR will result in the tearing down of the god-awful parkade in New West and tunnelling enclosing the Front St. truck route. Once tunnelled, a more complete, dense and transit orientated residential development can be added to the New West waterfront, from the Quay to the Patullo.
As for "get a Greyhound pass": tough sh*t. Curl up in your rented 480 sqf2 pad and rot. By the way, how do you think that cheap ass IKEA furniture gets to you? That's right - by truck and rail.
This is a unique definition of freeway that I have never heard of before. But now I now sort of understand what you mean.
Are you the reincarnation of Mayor Tom Campbell? He didn't like hippies or transit either.
A healthy population taking bicycles coupled with an increased frequency of mass transit to more areas in the lower mainland would prevent traffic congestion in the first place.
However, the ultimate answer is that people need to move closer to their workplaces rather than commuting from the suburbs. Densification of urban landscapes is the future. Live, work and play in the same place.
Get your fat suburban asses out of your SUVs and get on a bike, NOW.
Instead, welfare transit users console themselves by telling themselves that they are really reducing our carbon footprint commuting 100 km daily rather than admit to being a tax burden which they really are. They pretend that they are being sustainable on welfare transit which consumes just as much energy as driving when you look at the big picture to include deadheading 2.7 mpg diesel buses running empty, transit drivers driving to work, maintenance trucks towing broken buses, repair crews driving to Crack Stations to fix the derailed train after a junkie tosses his needle on the tracks ... the only ones laughing are the TransLink elite making a living off the gullible transit users who eat up whatever TransLink says: Be Part of the Plan, the transit welfare plan.
"“United Blvd. Extension ... a little stub of freeway"
"a freeway through downtown New Westminster"
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Doherty - You're a nut. 4-lane arterial roads with a 50 km/hr speed limit and traffic lights is a freeway? ROFLMAO
By your definition, every 4-lane road criss-crossing the City of Vancouver is a freeway. LOL
Time for you to educate yourself. Go speak to a transportation engineer and he will give you the proper in-depth definition of a freeway. Man, BC's education system has failed you miserably! LOL
the link you shared is simply an opinion piece which does not explain how or why a $180 million investment would do anything to improve the traffic situation in the Brunette corridor. Congestion is chronic in the entire corridor and this project just shifts it from one area to another. Opinions are not going to solve this problem.
In fact like most road boosters they've completely underestimated how much the project costs, over stated the benefits of the project and completely ignored the alternatives.
Hardly a persuasive argument.
Avid, you have it backwards. We don't need freeway expansion because people do take transit, ride bicycles and walk when good facilities and service are provided.
You can't expect people to ride a bus that does not exist, or that passes by because it is so overcrowded. This is about shifting the money from freeways to transit, people in Greater Vancouver have shown that if we provide good transit they will ride it.
You aren’t going to see more people abandoning their BMW 528i to take the SkyTrain. You are going to see more drivers (mostly) and some transit users moving here to fill the new developments spurred by the E-Line and TransLink. After the E-Line, TransLink will be back for the F-Line costing us more billions of dollars.
Look at Toronto where you have people commuting hours on transit; doesn't Toronto have major issues with the stuffed 401 highway? How did it happen? If Toronto did not build regional transit, development never would have occurred far from downtown Toronto and transit wouldn't be going broke in Toronto.
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