It’s not time to hit brakes on transit, mayors say

With affordability at a crisis point, it’s ‘build, baby, build’: Robertson

The mayors of Vancouver and Surrey, who are also the outgoing chair and vice-chair of the regional mayors’ council on transportation, are emphasizing the need to keep major transit projects on track despite comments from the incoming chair that suggest a possible slowdown.

In separate interviews with Postmedia, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and Surrey Mayor Linda Hepner stressed the need to move ahead quickly with Metro Vancouver’s 10-year transportation plan, including the major rapid transit projects slated for the region’s two largest municipalities.

Their comments come after Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan was elected this month to replace Robertson as chair of the mayor’s council on regional transportation, leading to comments from both observers and Corrigan himself that the change in leadership could result in a slowing of regional transportation plans.

The three-phase, 10-year transportation plan includes three high-priority mega-projects: the Broadway subway expansion in Vancouver, a light-rail system for Surrey and Langley, and the replacement of the Pattullo Bridge connecting New Westminster and Surrey. The first phase was approved in 2016, and the second phase is expected to be approved next year after provincial funding has been secured.

But Corrigan has been an outspoken critic. In 2014, when the mayors’ council approved the plan and Corrigan was the lone member opposing it, Postmedia reported he believed “Metro should have gone with a more realistic plan.”

Now, three years after the adoption of the plan and with funding agreements expected to be confirmed in the coming months, slowing down is not an acceptable option, Robertson and Hepner said.

“We desperately need more transit investment. … We need to keep this plan on track,” Robertson said. “Slowing down transportation investment would be insane in an affordability crisis with massive growth affecting our region.”

Meanwhile, Hepner said Corrigan’s comments about slowing things down “really did give me some consternation.”

“I thought: ‘Wow, we’ve never had this much money on the table ever from two different levels of government. Slowing down is exactly what we do not need to do,’” Hepner said.

Corrigan did not reply to a request for comment Monday, but on the day of his election as council chair, the CBC reported his comments “suggested the current strategy was too aggressive.”

“They’re looking at a very ambitious plan, and I think they were trying to proceed very quickly to accomplish everything in the plan. I think there will be a slowdown,” Corrigan told the CBC.

“So, what I’m going to do is prioritize with them those discussions around how we’re going to be able to move forward over the next year in establishing our priorities, and I think definitely, the question is, what are our priorities for the new provincial government to address?”

In October, before the council’s leadership shakeup, Corrigan told Postmedia that Robertson and Hepner had “a vested interest in being on the board because both of them have major projects that they’re pushing forward.”

But Robertson said last week those major projects planned for Vancouver and Surrey are needed for the entire region, not only for the benefit of those two municipalities. On the Broadway subway expansion, Robertson said, more than 60 per cent of the ridership is expected to come from outside the city of Vancouver.

Robertson said Corrigan “has been consistently against our 10year plan,” so his comments about slowing down are “nothing new.”

Asked if the time is right to slow things down and reconsider the plan, Robertson’s response was immediate and blunt.

“Hell no,” Robertson replied. “Build, baby, build.”

Vancouver’s Broadway corridor would host both the busiest bus route in North America, according to the city’s transportation 2040 plan, and the secondlargest employment area in all of B.C., after downtown Vancouver. Corrigan has experience in regional transit planning, having served as chair of B.C. Transit in the 1990s. But he has also been critical of rapid transit developments, including the Canada Line.

While Corrigan publicly sings the praises of cheaper buses over faster, more expensive rapid transit, his own municipality is already well-served by the latter. Burnaby, with a population of just over 232,000 and 11 SkyTrain stations, has more rapid transit stations per resident than Vancouver, which has a population of around 631,000 and 21 SkyTrain stations.

Hepner said she originally thought about putting her name forward again for the vice-chair position, but decided against it after Corrigan defeated Robertson in a secret ballot of the region’s mayors. She was replaced by district of North Vancouver Mayor Richard Walton.

Asked this week about her decision not to pursue the chance to be vice-chair alongside Corrigan, Hepner said: “I like to look for consensus, and I’m not a contrarian, and I think that it would have been a difficult spot for me to be in the position of a vice-chair when the chair has more of a reputation for being confrontational than I do.”

Robertson said he hopes to see work on all three major projects underway as soon as possible, with funding arrangements finalized early in the new year.