Quote:
Originally Posted by cabotp
Actually I live in South East Vancouver. Where you said "Regular" folks lived.
I have nothing against people who live outside of the city. What I'm against is people telling me that I need to change my area to accommodate them. I've never complained about anything that was done in the Valley. Even though at times I might have felt "man what a stupid decision that was." To me it was just something I had to deal with.
You mentioned that you'd like to see more people taking transit but that political will has been quite poor. In that regard I do agree with you. Which is why I'm afraid of amalgamation. I know that a higher percentage of people outside of Vancouver drive rather than take transit. So if you were to take a poll asking people a simple question of "Should we invest more in transit or build more roads?" Chances are in Vancouver because more people take transit they would vote for transit. But those in the Valley because more of them drive. You would probably get less people voting for transit and more for the expanded roads. So can you see how I'd be afraid of people from the Valley teaming up to expand the roads in Vancouver because most of them drive and that is all they know.
As I was saying if you want to Amalgamate to have services under one umbrella. Than sure I'd support that. But to amalgamate just to force Vancouver and the people who live in it to do something that they don't want to do. I could never support that.
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I don't know if your generalizations are 100% accurate.
The people of Coquitlam are clamoring for Evergreen line, and while the people of Port Moody might not want to play the TOD ballgame, they do still want the line passing through their town. You have large, fairly organized groups in North Surrey dead set against gateway, although their rhetoric has died down since concrete plans were laid for Rapid Bus service. People everywhere in the lower mainland used to drive everywhere, but look at areas in Burnaby and New Westminster that have been changed by improved Transit. Look at the thousands that take Expo Line from Surrey every day.
Just because a majority of people in the Valley drive, doesn't mean the majority are against transit expansion. If you ask people around here what they think of Translink, they think it's a joke. Not because they are wasting their time bringing elitist transit to the unwashed masses of redneck hicks in the valley, but in fact the opposite: because it's not good enough.
As I said before, the local focused government knife cuts both ways.
While you might like the fact that Vancouver Council looks out for the interests of locals, that might be detrimental. There are groups all over the city that want LRT/Streetcar on Broadway, and they are very vocal.
And they are right. If you are looking at it from an entirely local based service, then Streetcar is probably best for fostering locally focused communities with minimal influence/interaction from outside. In contrast, Broadway is a regional destination, and a regional body would be more interested in serving the good for everyone, which would probably be Skytrain, so that people can get from points outside the Corridor to points inside very quickly, or from one end to the other, fast.
If the original Skytrain wasn't built by the province, would it have ever happened? Would there have been a fast, mass transit line, that passes through very residential neighborhoods to bring people from Burnaby and New Westminster into the city? The train is fairly loud, I imagine there would have been huge pressure on city council to not build it.
Just look at the criticism of the Canada Line. People didn't want it built along the Arbutus corridor, and then on Cambie, they didn't want their lives impacted in anyway to benefit regional transit. We didn't listen to them, and put the greater good ahead of petty temporary inconvenience, and have an amazing, heavily used, transit system that serves the greater good of multiple cities.
But the current city council has put a ban on cut and cover construction, the interpretation of which can jeopardize construction of Skytrain on the Broadway corridor.
So, you might criticize and be skeptical of Valley residents' will for transit, I am the same of the will and intent of citizens of City of Vancouver, based on their track record. The only way it happens, is when a larger body, with regional interests, like the Province, forces it to happen.
If you came to Surrey and said, we're building Skytrain down King George to Newton, you would have everyone kissing the ground you walk on. Tell people in Vancouver you're building Skytrain down Broadway and you'll have protests.
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