Frankly Speaking

At-grade LRT (pictured) or SkyTrain? There is plenty of debate about which type of transit service would be best for the line planned to run between Whalley and Langley City. Langley City councillors are enthusiastic about SkyTrain coming to Langley ­- and why wouldn’t they be? Transit service to and within Langley is probably the most inadequate service in the entire region. Even Abbotsford and Mission, which are part of a separate transit service with minimal links to TransLink, have better service than many areas of Langley do. There is no bus service to Gloucester Industrial Park, no bus service along 16 Avenue, and east of Murrayville, there is only the 503 to Aldergrove, which gets a lot of use, despite many challenges for riders. One of those is the very long time it takes to get from Aldergrove to SkyTrain in Surrey. Langley City council recently heard from Daryl Dela Cruz, who has been spearheading a drive to have a SkyTrain line built between King George Station ...

Photo from Fraser Surrey Docks website It seems unlikely that a coal export facility will ever be built at Fraser Surrey Docks, given the recent global agreement on how to reduce carbon emissions and China`s stated objective of reducing the amount of coal it burns to provide electricity. Canada is among the 195 countries signing on to a worldwide plan to reduce carbon emissions, and attempt to keep global temperatures from rising. The accord, reached in Paris after two weeks of intensive talks, calls for significant reductions in emissions from coal, natural gas and oil. It also calls for preservation and replanting of forests, transparency and regular five-year reviews of how countries are progressing, and an unspecified but significant subsidy from richer countries to poorer ones. The new federal Liberal government wants to move forward and have an implementation plan in place, together with the provinces, in 90 days. Thus this accord will have a very significant eff...

My column in this week's Surrey Leader and Peace Arch News Last week, word came down that the proposal to add 0.5 per cent to the provincial sales tax to pay for an ambitious program of transportation expansion was handily defeated. Surrey voters voted 66 per cent against the plan. Delta voters were against it by a 68-32 per cent margin, while 59 per cent of White Rock voters said “no.” What does this mean for the projects which most benefit Surrey? The Pattullo Bridge replacement project will still go ahead. Even supporters of the added tax acknowledged this during the campaign. TransLink’s portion of the cost of the new bridge will be funded by tolls, so the sales tax revenue plan really didn’t affect it. The bigger question on the Pattullo should be this - why spend more than $100 million to patch up the bridge to keep it open for a few more years? TransLink announced just before the final day of handing in plebiscite ballots that the bridge would be cl...