Rob's Ramblings

- Transportation is one of the highest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in our regions so it is important to shift to less polluting modes. - Metro Vancouver with a transit modal share of only 13% lags behind many world class cities that have modal shares of 40-60%. - Zurich has achieved a transit modal share of 63% by keeping fares relatively low (a one zone monthly fare card is about 40% less than one in Vancouver). - Private automobiles are subsidized by about 6 billion dollars per year in our region. - The subsidies that to go automobiles should be shifted to transit. This would provide long term stable funding for the service and reduce the need for fare increases.

Public barred from Gateway Announcement Originally uploaded by Robs__ Residents of Surrey and Vancouver were blocked from entering the site of an announcement regarding the controversial Gateway Program on Monday. The announcement was held on private property behind barbed wire fences. Some in attendance speculated this was a deliberate attempt to keep the public from attending an event about the project which is becoming increasingly unpopular. The announcement was billed as the official launch of construction on the South Fraser Perimeter Road (SFPR) portion of the program. But it contained little new information. The Federal government promised support but did not offer any specifics in terms of funding. The Prime Minister painted the project as part of his government's economic stimulus package. But opponents pointed out that transit projects create seven times as many jobs as highway building. Dozens of protesters turned out to meet the federal and provincial government of...

Speaking about the new Provincial Transit Plan , Premier Campbell said "Our transit mission is nothing short of being a global leader in terms of public transit and transit usage." Unfortunately, the plan will get us no where near to being a "global leader." The new transit plan has ridership reaching 17% by 2020. But in Stockholm 70 percent of peak period trips are by public transit. In Berlin it is 40% with a goal of 80%. Paris and London are both over 20%. Other European cities : Utrecht - 40% Helsinki - 30% Zurich - 40% Copenhagen - 31% Even some American cities seem to be ahead of us (note: these numbers are for percentage of commuters not total trips): Washington - 33% New York - 53 % I would like to see us be a global leader in public transit. But unfortunately, this plan is too little too late. Maybe if we cancelled all the highway expansion projects and made transit a priority we could start to make progress towards that goal.

Apologists for the Gateway Program appear to be re-writing history and claiming that Translink had no plans to run transit over the Port Mann bridge. In actual fact a transit route with queue jumpers was originally planned to be implemented in 2004-2005 (see page 93 of Tanslink's South of Fraser - Area Transit Plan, Final Report - June 2000 : http://www.translink.bc.ca/files/pdf/plan_proj/area_plans/south_fr_final.pdf) Later it appears this was changed to 2007 (see page A8 of Three Year (2005 - 2007) Implementation & Financial Strategy - December 2004 :http://www.translink.bc.ca/files/pdf/plan_proj/ThreeYr05-07Strategic.pdf ) The two maps below produced by a third party illustrate the plans outlined in the documents referenced above. The Port Mann bus route is shown in red. The 2000 Transit plan had the route stopping at central Surrey - this map extends that route. The queue jumper lanes. Update: This project is also mentioned in the "KEEPING GREATER VANCOUVER MOVING...