Rebecca recently posted about the poor lack of transit in Surrey, and touched on the discussion that is continuing to grow about both the poor service in the Valley and the lack of rapid transit expansion throughout the region. This “conversation on transportation” if you will, I believe, started with the announcement of the twinning of the Port Mann, and received a shot of heroin when Kevin Falcon announced he was restructuring Translink, while refusing to fund the Evergreen Line. Since then, we’ve had the Stop Gateway and Livable Region Coalition people attempt to stop the bridge twinning, the VALTAC and Rail for the Valley people hammer the local news with attempts to bring back passenger service to the Interurban route, Translink wander along in limbo all year with a series of malfunctioning (or poorly designed) new buses, Jordan Bateman release his proposal for LRT down 200th St, and now all the rush about back to school transport.

You know, the one thing I find particularly interesting about all this talk the past few months is how much those of us South of the Fraser are controlling the discussion. I mean, the Tri-Cities were loud as heck when the Evergreen Line was being developed, but now that it has been postponed indefinitely (essentially), you don’t even hear a peep from the area. Or even worse is the Vancouverites, who, despite the insane demand for a western extension of the Millennium Line, have learned to suck it and and suffer through. Meanwhile, whether it’s through Valley transit advocacy from LRC and Gateway 40 people, our own local groups demanding new rail options, or even one real leading politician willing to propose the unthinkable (true rapid transit for Langley!), those of us out in Surrey and beyond are calling all the shots with the media.

As Rebecca pointed out, it’s more than time for us to get the spotlight. Here’s what I assumed happened back the in 90’s: Harcourt wanted to build the T-Line (or Millennium Line), which switched from LRT to SkyTrain, thus inflating costs and reducing the project’s scope, Surrey’s SkyTrain stations weren’t really encouraging any redevelopment (negating any real reason to focus on Surrey for expansion), Translink was formed, funding formulas kept getting thrown out, we won the Olympics and Ken Hardie shoehorned the RAV Line (or Canada Line) to the top of the construction list, the Tri-Cities demanded a Northeast Sector rapid transit line as promised, and Kevin Falcon dismantled Translink. A lot can happen in a decade.

There’s the history lesson for the day. I’d love to touch of all the different possiblities for transit expansion, both North and South of the Fraser, but I’ll save that for another post.

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