Petition urges feds to fund transit expansion, including SkyTrain to Langley

Credit to Author: Dan Fumano| Date: Thu, 05 Dec 2019 02:13:27 +0000

TransLink says the top ask of people who got involved in five months of public engagement was expanding transit connections to the Fraser Valley.

TransLink released the results Tuesday of the first phase of public engagement for Transport 2050, the regional transit authority’s strategic plan for transportation for the next 30 years.

The report’s release comes just as an electronic petition is gaining steam calling for federal spending to support TransLink’s plans over the next 10 years, approaching the number of signatures that will legally require the feds to respond.

The 10-year vision approved last year by the Metro Vancouver Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation called for light rail from Surrey to Langley, in the western Fraser Valley. But after Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum campaigned — and won — last year on building a SkyTrain line east through Surrey to Langley, the Mayors’ Council voted earlier this year to prepare a business case for that plan.

The electronic petition launched last month urges the feds to step up with new investments to fund “transit expansion across the region including, but not limited to, building SkyTrain to Langley City and to UBC.”

The petition was sponsored by Ken Hardie, Liberal MP for Surrey—Port Kells. “Given what’s going on in the region — not just population growth, but the location of jobs, industry, et cetera — we actually need that (SkyTrain) to get all the way to Langley for that investment to work best for the region,” he said.

The petition calls for the federal government to provide $3 billion for a permanent fund, as requested by Metro Vancouver’s mayors earlier this year, to support transit projects in municipalities across the country. The proposed “congestion relief fund” would be allocated based on ridership, and Metro Vancouver would receive $375 million each year under the proposal.

“That petition is just ammunition that we can take into caucus or into Parliament itself, and say: ‘This is a really, really big deal out on the coast, and we’ll make really good use of the money,” Hardie said Wednesday by phone.

The federal government committed $20 billion in its 2017 budget for transit system improvements across Canada over 11 years, through agreements with provinces and territories.

Hardie, who headed TransLink’s communications department before getting into politics, said he plans to raise the subject with Canada’s new infrastructure minister, Catherine McKenna.

Government is required to respond within 45 days to any petition presented in the House of Commons by a sitting MP that has at least 500 valid signatures. Hardie’s electronic petition (number “e-2297”), which closes Jan. 17, had 381 signatures on Wednesday.

Hardie sponsored the petition, but he said “all the spade work” on it was done by John Aldag, who was Liberal MP for Cloverdale—Langley City, but lost his seat in this year’s election.

Aldag, who lives in the Township of Langley, said he found during the campaign that “people were really excited about SkyTrain to Langley, with the Mayors’ Council changing the direction after the municipal election.”

Aldag said he’s “cautiously optimistic” that when the Liberal minority government presents its first budget in the new year, it will include money for the “congestion relief fund” requested by Metro’s mayors.

The idea of a gondola on Burnaby Mountain was also among the most popular suggestions among members of the public during TransLink’s engagement process. In the second phase of engagement, launching in the new year, TransLink will ask the public to “consider trade-offs between different transportation options for the future.”

dfumano@postmedia.com

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