Bus service so bad, we'll look at anything
How bad is transit service south of the Fraser River? It's so bad that most of us are willing to give the TransLink reorganization a chance.The Surrey Leader reports on the province's legislation to revamp the transit authority. The day-to-day operations of the organization will be carried out by a nine-member professional board. Folks will be appointed to that board after being screened by another group of five people--a municipal representative selected by area mayors, the Minister of Transportation, the Vancouver Board of Trade, the Greater Vancouver Gateway Society, and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of BC.
So those five gorups will each name three candidates, and forward those fifteen names to regional Mayors. The Mayors will then pick nine members from that shortlist to be on the TransLink Board.
On the bright side, this gives the Province a huge stake in TransLink's success or failure, and will likely open the door to more money for important items like the Evergreen Line (which Get Moving BC believes should be funded by the Province). On the down side, it does mean the TransLink Board is still unelected.
The new board will take over Jan. 1, 2008. The area's Mayors will have the final say on all strategic plans and any tax increases.
The present transit situation in Surrey, Langley, Delta, and White Rock is terrible. This has led many of the people I have spoken with to give the new TransLink model a chance. "It can't get any worse," is a comment I have often heard.
1 Comments:
I have just figured out what is wrong with transit South of the Fraser. I have returned from driving to Willowbrook Mall. My daughter works as a clerk in a retail outlet to earn money to go to UBC again next fall. The round trip was twenty minutes. I don't want to increase my "carbon footprint" any more than I have to so I thought I would check the bus routes my daughter could take for the same trip. The absolute minimum length for one way would involve two buses and one hour and 15 minutes. Can someone please explain why anyone would consider riding two and a half hours on a bus every day so they could put in four hours at a minimum wage mall job.
Logical minds would tell me that most people stuck in gridlock everyday at the bypass and 200th are going to Willowbrook. That same logic tells me that there should be a bus that runs circle routes from different areas of the community to and from the largest destination.
I have just returned from Australia where the bus system actually does just that. The central station is at the largest mall. Here we have it stuck in the most derelict section of town where only casino patrons and drug dealers hang around.
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