Your thoughts on the Provincial Transit Plan
Posted on January 15th, 2008 in environment, links, politics, transportation, vancouver |
I haven’t ever done this, but with a recent increase in readership, I thought I may as well try.
You’ve seen the plan. You’ve viewed the news reports.
Now, what do you think?
There’s a poll below, and I’m leaving this posts comments wide open. It’s a free for all.
What are your concerns? Does the plan meet your needs? How will this effect you? What bumps in the road do you predict?
If you have anything to say, say it!
What's your opinion on the Provincial Transit Plan?
6 Responses
more transit is good
still would like a bike program like Paris but there seems to be no money or will for this and promotion of multi-modal transit initiatives
Ya, there was a blurb in the plan about a cycling program. It’s apparently under development.
This corroborates with stuff I heard: Falcon was having private meetings with SPEC and the VACC execs, trying to get them to be more vocal for cycling. Because, if people demanded it, it would give Falcon the impetus to hand out more funding.
I expect that the plan will improve the current funding structure, and perhaps even give incentives for communities that develop long term local plans. Probably something like the civic squares they have going for BC’s 150th.
The one thing the province can’t do though is make it a super huge thing and impose routes on municipalities. Cycling is something that can really only be done at the local level, unlike major transit initiatives.
Hi Paul,
I wrote a bit comparing the Mexico City’s metro system (the skytrain, so to speak) and Metro Vancouver’s. I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts.
http://hummingbird604.blogspot.com/2008/01/provincial-transit-plan-and-mexico.html
As for the Provincial Plan, it sounds to me as something that should have happened about 20 years ago, but at least there is a goal!
“still would like a bike program like Paris but there seems to be no money or will for this and promotion of multi-modal transit initiatives”
paris has 2 things vancouver doesnt. geography and density. where are you going to put a web-like system with mountains and ocean surrounding our peninsula? vancouver is a funnel, surrounded by mountains on 2 sides and ocean on the third, how can you put a web on that?
paris also has the density to support the system, we have wide spaces of ALR separating the single family suburbs and the somewhat dense city. there are pockets of density, but the whole metro area isnt dense like paris, ny, or london.
i’d like to see that sort of system as well, but frankly it doesnt make sense. to be honest, this sort of transit expansion is irresponsible, $14B could build and run 14 really nice hospitals for the province.
or, maybe a bid on the summer olympics?
Some parts of Vancouver are as dense as NYC.
Was someone talking about putting the cycling program in the suburbs? Vancouver city is a large enough area with enough density to support a cycling program. We have Zip car lots everywhere so why not bikes? I work next to a designated bike route and in slightly warmer weather there are more bikes than cars, sometimes huge groups of them. The bike lockup was always overflowing at my school (Emily Carr… a fairly central location). Buzz, while I appreciate opposing views, your bitterness and evident stubborn lack of support for anything but the car — while commenting on a very pro-transit blog — is growing tiresome.
Hey Paul do you answer TransLink’s surveys? They sent me one today asking questions about said cycling initiative.