Vision Vancouver video shows Kirk LaPointe avoiding transit question

The NPA's mayoral candidate, Kirk LaPointe, continues coming under fire from Vision Vancouver over a potential Broadway subway line.

Late last week, the city's governing party released the video above, which shows LaPointe refusing to respond to a question from journalist Frances Bula.

Bula started by asking LaPointe why he keeps blaming Mayor Gregor Robertson for proposing a carbon tax to pay for transit when, according to her, the idea is being pushed hardest by Surrey mayor Dianne Watts.

Bula also claimed that LaPointe was blaming Robertson for a 10-year transit plan supported by various mayors.

"Why do you make it sound like he's the only person who thought of this?" Bula asked.

"Uhm, sorry, don't have an answer for that," LaPointe replied. "I mean that's a bit of a, it's a bit of an empty question."

At that point, an NPA communications official off-screen declared that the question-and-answer session was over.

Bula then interjected to ask LaPointe if she was wrong and if it was only Robertson who had come up with the idea for a carbon tax to fund transportation initiatives.

"Gotta go," LaPointe replied as he walked away from the podium.

Meanwhile at a mayoral debate today at Christ Church Cathedral, LaPointe claimed that Robertson had "alienated" other levels of government.

The NPA mayoral candidate left an impression that this is why there's no money committed for a Broadway subway after six years of Vision Vancouver rule.

Robertson told the Christ Church Cathedral audience that the city needed an experienced hand at the helm to deal with the upcoming transit referendum.

Meanwhile, the Mayors' Council voted earlier this year in favour of a long list of transportation improvements, including an underground rapid-transit line from VCC-Clark Station to Arbutus Street.

The video below outlines the vision of the Mayors' Council, which will have to be approved by voters before going ahead.

By 2025, these initiatives will require an additional $390 million per year in new funding.

Meanwhile in 2012, KPMG produced a report for UBC and the City of Vancouver making an economic case for a subway below Broadway that would reach UBC.

At a February 2013 news conference cohosted by Robertson and then UBC president Stephen Toope, Toope suggested that the line would start at the Commercial-Broadway Station, not at VCC-Clark.

“If we don’t make those decisions to collaborate better, to work smarter, and to build transit—effective transit, rapid rail transit all the way from Commercial Drive to UBC—we will not be seizing that opportunity that presents itself,” Toope said at the time.

On October 21, the NPA issued a news release expressing support for a subway from Commercial Drive to UBC.

That prompted Robertson to ridicule LaPointe at an October 22 mayoral debate at Langara College for not realizing that the Mayors' Council had actually backed a line extending from VCC-Clark and not from Commercial-Broadway Station.