Imagine that you're Kevin Desmond, the CEO of TransLink.

You have all the federal and provincial funding lined up for a $1.65-billion street-level light-rail project extending from Guildford west to Surrey Centre, and then south along the King George Highway to Newton.

Your organization has already issued a request for qualifications for bids for an 11-year contract to design, build, operate, maintain, and rehabilitate the line.

This RFQ also requires the winning bidder to finance up to $400 million of the construction costs in what's known as a public-private partnership.

It's taken many years to reach this point. There will be 11 stops along the line.

The project has long been promoted by Surrey council as a way to promote the development of a downtown, enhance a nascent high-tech hub around Surrey Memorial Hospital, and provide easy access to the art gallery. It could lead to the development of more cultural facilities along King George Highway.

It will also enhance Surrey's downtown, concentrate development around various stops along the line, and reduce road-building costs over the long term.

If more lines could be built to other city centres in the coming years, Surrey might even lose its reputation as B.C.'s capital of urban sprawl.

Desmond knows that this project is supported by the Surrey Board of Trade, as well as by sensible urbanists across the region.

He's politically savvy enough to recognize that there are NDP MLAs on the government side of the legislature representing Newton and Guildford. Langley has two B.C. Liberal MLAs.

If the NDP doesn't deliver rapid transit to Newton and Guildford, it could hurt the prospects of its politicians.

So there will be political resistance in Victoria to putting a project to Langley ahead of light rail to Newton and Guildford.

But whenever transit connections are improved with street-level light rail, there are also losers.

They include car dealers who will sell fewer vehicles.

They include developers who've bought land in areas not serviced by the new line.

They include cement companies that create ugly guide rails, and manufacturers of intermediate-capacity-rail like SkyTrain.

Then imagine that a populist former mayor—a former chair of TransLink—attempts a political comeback on a platform of unravelling the political consensus for light rail.

He calls for scrapping the light-rail project and instead, developing SkyTrain down the Fraser Highway to Langley.

In effect, his campaign serves the interests of the car dealers, owners of land along Fraser Highway, cement producers, and manufacturers of intermediate-rail systems.

Then imagine that this populist politician wins in a landslide. Imagine that his party captures all but one of the seats on Surrey council.

It's enough to give TransLink's CEO, Desmond, indigestion and possibly consider seeking a new job somewhere else.

On October 20, Surrey voters returned Doug McCallum to the mayor's chair 13 years after he was turfed out of office.

He's claiming that the SkyTrain can be extended from King George Station to Langley for the same cost as the light-rail project.

Desmond knows that this is bullshit. TransLink's bean counters have already pegged the cost of SkyTrain to Langley at about $2.9 billion. That's 75 percent more expensive than the light-rail project with 11 stops.

McCallum is politely being called the "disruptor" by the media. 

If light rail is scrapped in Surrey, there will be years of delay in moving a SkyTrain project forward. 

In the meantime, residents in Newton and Guildford will most certainly buy many more cars than they otherwise would have.

That's because there will be no train service to their communities.

This week on Global B.C., New Westminster mayor Jonathan Cote said that the current funding envelope for light rail might only cover the cost of extending SkyTrain from King George Station to Fleetwood.

That's less than half the 17-kilometre distance to Langley Centre. It wouldn't reach Cloverdale or Clayton, let alone its final destination.

So what does Desmond do?

This week, TransLink extended the deadline on its RFQ on the light-rail project to December 11.

Given the chaos being created by McCallum's election, it's understandable why some potential bidders might be hesitant to invest huge amounts of time and money putting together proposals. McCallum knows this.

Desmond was hired as TransLink's CEO in 2016 and has brought some much-needed stability to TransLink. 

He was previously general manager of King County Metro Transit in Seattle, where transit ridership grew 44 percent during his tenure.

He arrived after a difficult period for TransLink. Following Pat Jacobsen's retirement in 2008, Tom Prendergast was hired from the New York City system, but only lasted 15 months.

He was succeeded by long-time finance head Ian Jarvis, who tended to avoid the media spotlight. He was canned before the 2015 transit plebiscite.

Jarvis was replaced on an interim basis by long-term bureaucrat Doug Allen. The plebiscite went down to defeat.

Since taking the top job in 2016, Desmond has left the impression that he genuinely loves transit. He seems eager to take on the challenge of extending rail projects and getting more Metro Vancouver residents out of their cars. 

This is a good thing for air quality and ensures that the region is doing its part to address climate change.

He's doing this even though TransLink is heavily reliant on fuel taxes to pay its bills. It's a difficult juggling act for anyone running the regional transportation authority.

Desmond also resolved the Compass card mess by ensuring that people with disabilities could access the system.

It will be a major loss if McCallum's rise to power causes Desmond to leave TransLink to run a transportation authority in another city with fewer headaches.

Other mayors need to keep this in mind when electing their next chair of the TransLink Mayors' Council.

There will be a temptation to give the Surrey mayor-elect what he wants. It might be easier politically to cave in to Surrey's desire for a truncated SkyTrain line to Fleetwood rather than the full-meal-deal of light rail connecting two of Surrey's communities to the downtown.

That will do little to address traffic congestion, air pollution, and climate change.

No doubt, the wily McCallum is working the back rooms trying to curry favour with the mayors to make this happen.

It's going to take a strong backbone to stand up to him to do what's right for the region, for TransLink, and for the people of Surrey.

If the mayors cave in to McCallum, they could conceivably find themselves looking for yet another TransLink CEO.

That's because based on Desmond's success so far, he'll be in high demand by other transportation authorities across North America.

This is not a time to placate the populist from Surrey.

For the good of the region, it's incumbent on the other mayors to play hardball.

And it's incumbent on the public and members of city councils across the region to ensure that their mayors recognize that pandering to McCallum's rapid-transit fantasy is not going to help improve transit ridership or reduce the region's traffic congestion.