I wrote the following opinion piece for
The Abbotsford Post.On Monday morning, I was a guest on CKNW's Bill Good Show, talking about the need to get on with the Gateway Project and twin the Port Mann Bridge. I believe this investment in transportation is absolutely vital to the entire south Fraser region, including Abbotsford.
I know, I know. I'm a BC Liberal, so you're more than welcome to take whatever I write here with the appropriate grain of salt. Obviously, Gateway is a BC Liberal initiative, but I believe it's one I would support even if I wasn't a member of Rich Coleman's riding association.
Of course, almost 60% of you did vote to re-elect Mike de Jong and John van Dongen in 2005, so I suppose I'm within your political mainstream.
Anyway, politics aside, twinning the Port Mann Bridge is plain common sense.
Not only will it immediately reduce congestion on a bridge that is a virtual parking lot for more than thirteen hours a day, it will provide transit options that we have never had before. There hasn't been a bus on the Port Mann in two decades, because traffic makes it impossible to schedule them.
The new Port Mann will have an HOV lane going north, cycle lanes, the ability to accommodate buses, and, if TransLink so desires, a light rail line. Imagine that--a rail line going all the way down the centre of the freeway, from Vancouver to Chilliwack.
Right now, Highway 1 backs up past 200th St. every morning. This means Abbotsford residents wanting to get to Coquitlam have to either take the Mission Bridge and the congested Pitt River Bridge, or wait for a six-mile long traffic jam.
Forget the economic cost of this congestion, which is estimated at $1.5 billion. And put aside the environmental cost of having six miles of cars idling every morning.
Think of the social cost of having a parent (or two) sitting in four hours of traffic a day, while their children wait at home. If an Abbotsford parent works 9-5 in Coquitlam (not an unreasonable scenario), they leave before their children wake up in the morning, and don't get home until 6:30 at the earliest. That leaves them 90 minutes for supper and play before their child goes to bed at 8.
That's a heartbreaking, and all too common, reality. These kids don't get to have a parent coaching them in minor sports. They don't get to have a mom or dad help them through Girl Guides or Boy Scouts.
This social cost is the number one reason I support twinning the Port Mann. The economic and environmental spin-offs are nice bonuses. But I want moms and dads to be home with their kids longer than they are on the road.
The Port Mann Bridge cannot be twinned soon enough.
8 Comments:
The MacPhee, Collins and Smith study found that travel time by a light rail transit system from Abbotsford to Coquitlam would be about 40 minutes as opposed to the 1.5 to 2 hours in your scenario.
Evidence from across North American suggests that adding freeway lanes (especially just one in each direction) reduces congestion for only short period of time (sometimes only a few months). After which people would be back to the 1.5 to 2 hour commute.
So if we really want to give people more time with their families why not implement the best solution NOW? Why implement a very expensive short term fix that has all the associated problems with pollution and global warming?
What did you mean by this?
Not only will it immediately reduce congestion on a bridge...
It will not immediately reduce anything. How many years would the bridge take to build? Do you think traffic would get better or worse during those years?
Straight Talk
Liberals accused of astroturfing
Straight Talk By Matthew Burrows
Publish Date: May 3, 2007
The leader of a collection of groups opposed to B.C. Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon 's Gateway program is accusing two card-carrying B.C. Liberals in municipal office of "astroturfing".
Gateway 40 Network coordinator Donna Passmore told the Straight she is angered by a Web site– www.getmovingbc.com/ –that advertises itself as "grassroots" but is pro-Gateway and the braintrust of Port Coquitlam city councillor Greg Moore and Langley Township councillor Jordan Bateman .
"It absolutely is astroturfing," Passmore said by phone. "It's the Wizard of Oz phenomenon, where this dazzling spectacle is created, but it comes right down to this little Jordan Bateman."
Bateman did not return Straight calls by deadline. On April 30, he appeared as a guest on CKNW to talk about Gateway and subsequently wrote about it on the site.
"I got my points across as best I could, and I feel I represented fairly the concerns of Langley residents," Bateman stated in the blog entry for that day. "We need both more transit and more roads. It's just common sense."
Moore, a former B.C. Liberal candidate, told the Straight he paid $54.10 to register and retain the GetMovingBC.com domain, noting that he has handed the running of the site over to Bateman. "I'm a city councillor in Port Coquitlam and Jordan's a city councillor in Langley," Moore said. "Because I might have run or worked on campaigns for the B.C. Liberals should not preclude me from working on any nonprofit groups or promoting any interests that I want. I think it's important–as the site is all about transportation solutions–to look at them all. The Livable Region Coalition is focused solely on anti-Gateway."
Moore said he has received no outside funding for the site and built it himself and "took most of the pictures, too". The domain name is paid up for two years in total, he added.
Langley school trustee Sonya Paterson , coordinator of the recently formed Valley Transportation Advisory Committee , told the Straight she noticed the Web site last year.
"When I saw it, I thought it was a Liberal Web site that was promoting and endorsing the [Gateway] plan," Paterson said in a phone interview. "I think they should say what they are really about, although it has been known for a long time in Langley that [B.C. Forests and Range and Housing Minister] Rich Coleman is Jordan Bateman's mentor."
The Web page of Bateman's business, Outlawed Wonderings Media Group , links to a September 14, 2006, announcement that he is the new vice president of Coleman's Fort Langley–Aldergrove B.C. Liberal riding association.
I am interested to read all the focus on the Port Mann Bridge, especially BEST and Livable Region Coalition. But where are these groups on the all the other road construction, for example Golden Ears Bridge (which has NO ability to accommodate rapid transit in the future), replacing the Pitt River Bridge and other significant road improvements. Or even better are these organizations involved at Official Community Plan processes or municipal rezoning? I don’t think so. These groups are focused on one issue – Port Mann Bridge and the BC Liberals. I suggest they jump on their bikes ride out to Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows, Surrey, Langley rent a condo for a month and commute back to their non-profit volunteer work in Vancouver on a daily basis.
I am not suggesting we should build a transportation solution around the car but what I am suggesting is that we need to look and understand all of the proposed transportation initiatives for goods movement, commuting (both auto and pedal) and quality of life.
Be apart of the solution and open your minds to the new opportunities presented by all levels of government.
“...Golden Ears Bridge (which has NO ability to accommodate rapid transit in the future)...”
But the GE Bridge does have very specific plans for public transit. There is even a route number already assigned (#703). And this means it could easily accommodate a Bus Rapid Transit route on each side. The Port Mann expansion has NO specific plans for public transit.
The GE Bridge is being put in where public transit is not currently possible. The Port Mann likely could currently be used for public transit if it was used introduced in combination with congestion charging and queue jumpers.
“..are these organizations involved at Official Community Plan processes or municipal rezoning? ...”
You might want to do a little more research on the LRC and BEST. One of the founding partners of the LRC is Smart Growth BC which work almost exclusively on issues of Community Planning and zoning.
Jordan - has LRC or BEST ever come to a Langley OCP public hearing or a re-zoning?
Are there any other municipal officials who are on this post who comment on this point?
No they haven't. At least not that I can ever recall.
"The Port Mann expansion has NO specific plans for public transit.
The GE Bridge is being put in where public transit is not currently possible. The Port Mann likely could currently be used for public transit if it was used introduced in combination with congestion charging and queue jumpers."
This is such intentionally misleading nonsense it's difficult to know how to respond.
The notion that there is no specific provision for public transit in the construction of a new bridge is an thoroughly insincere and stupid thing to say. The expanded highway and bridge system will have HOV lanes designated and these can accommodate buses. The bus service and schedule are not in themselves part of the actual bridge design, and can be prepared separately and later by Translink, or whatever it's going to be called once it's been Falconized.
The notion that "queue jumpers" (what exactly is that?) would allow a scheduled bus service to operate over the existing structure is absolutely false in every respect, and the so-called "experts" at SPEC know that. They just don't care because their game is propaganda masquerading as analysis, a sort of greeny version of the Fraser Institute's outpourings.
The 152nd Street approach ramp would have to be completely reconstructed in order to accommodate such a facility, and to rebuild that interchange/overpass without reconstructing the crossing itself would be a negligent waste of public funds, as any reasonable person can plainly see.
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