Surrey mayor wants a network of helipads across the city

[scryer]

If this was partially or completely privately funded, I would be okay with this.

[Shift]

Originally Posted by scryer

If this was partially or completely privately funded, I would be okay with this.

Pretty sure it is completely privately funded. Im not sure what involvement the city has other than assisting with site selection. I doubt the city is building the heliports themselves.

[Shift]

Originally Posted by mezzanine

I can see this being a plus, but the optics aren't good. Nothing says "i'm an out-of-touch, podunk mayor" better than talking up your new helicopter infrastructure to service "executives".

I guess this goes for any mayor with a privately operated commercial Heliport in their city then too right? Vancouver, Los Angeles, New York, Nanaimo, Victoria... Name any city with a heliport basically. Out of touch, podunk mayors.

Heliports are commonplace across many other large metropolitan regions. Its modern infrastructure providing a service to get across regions quicker than is possible by land. If there is a market for it, why not.

[mezzanine]

Originally Posted by Shift

I guess this goes for any mayor with a privately operated commercial Heliport in their city then too right? Vancouver, Los Angeles, New York, Nanaimo, Victoria... Name any city with a heliport basically. Out of touch, podunk mayors.

Heliports are commonplace across many other large metropolitan regions. Its modern infrastructure providing a service to get across regions quicker than is possible by land. If there is a market for it, why not.

Are you serious? For a mayor to announce something like this at a high profile event like this is something out of a news article from the Onion. I get that she is excited about higher level economic development, but at least end with talk about things at least that affects more people. B-line service? Updates on skytrain station renovations? IMO she should have closed with planned improvements on school overcrowding.

[GMasterAres]

Surrey is trying to grow up and attract commercial and office buildings. This is one of the steps toward that. Not just executives either, movie industry uses helicopters quite a bit and for larger productions will often fly stars out to the Fraser Valley via helicopter. There's a lot of filming that takes place South of Fraser.

For someone with money, $120-$150 is nothing. I've worked for people who fart $10,000.

I also get annoyed when people are like "Oh she should talk about nothing but dealing with the crime." I'll remind them the next time Mayor Gregor in Vancouver announces anything other than homeless related items since that's Vancouver's big problem and clearly he should only ever talk about that.

[GMasterAres]

Originally Posted by mezzanine

Are you serious? For a mayor to announce something like this is something out of a news article from the Onion. I get that she is excited about higher level economic development, but at least end with talk about things at least that affects more people. B-line service? Updates on skytrain renovations? IMO should should have closed with planned improvements on school overcrowding.

She can't do anything about schools. That's the Provincial Government. Last I checked also SkyTrain and B-Line service is under Translink's control which is again the Provincial Government. Did you actually mean "Premier?" Seems like you are confused the two.

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by jhausner

Surrey is trying to grow up and attract commercial and office buildings.

...

I also get annoyed when people are like "Oh she should talk about nothing but dealing with the crime." I'll remind them the next time Mayor Gregor in Vancouver announces anything other than homeless related items since that's Vancouver's big problem and clearly he should only ever talk about that.

Part of attracting business requires solving long-term problems. Surrey has gangland problems, that is a danger to everyone and brings down not only property values but investment opportunities. The crime problem should have been at the top of the list a decade ago.

http://vancouversun.com/news/staff-b...rime-this-year

July 31 2015 Surrey RCMP stats show big increase in violent crime this year: 36%

47 by the end of 2015

And then this year:
http://www.thenownewspaper.com/news/378822391.html

May 10, 2016, Surrey RCMP investigating 34th, 35th shooting

Vs a decade ago:
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Ste...604/story.html

09.30.2005
...
And the killing of gang members has continued, with 10 murders since last fall of Indo-Canadians or their associates linked to gangs.
...

What does that tell me? That tells me that Surrey First either didn't believe the crime problem to exist, or purposely waited for it to become a problem so they can get the province/federal government to foot the bill.

Same with the school system. I'm pretty sure Surrey knew it was going to be a problem, but the school district decided to keep building portables instead of actual schools. This could have been prevented had the school district been at the table with the city when they started planning these ill-advised sprawling developments, or maybe they were and were ignored.

But no. Surrey can't claim to be the best run city (That belongs to Burnaby, for now) when the Surrey city councils refuses to plan ahead and just kick the problems with short-sighted thinking to the next city council. Burnaby doesn't have Surrey's crime problem, but it does have Vancouver's housing problem, and is in fact worse than Vancouvers due to no requirements to replace rental units. But when we talk about which is the best and worst parts of Metro Vancouver to live in, people talk about Surrey like it's Detroit.

[queetz@home]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Until recently, Los Angeles required all tall building to have a helipad on the roof for emergencies (earthquakes).

Having a proper helipad would be good. I could see one in the Scott Road area.
HeliJet is heavily used to travel to Victoria - by MLAs and business people.
It's only 30 minutes one way - the Victoria helipad is at Ogden Point (close to downtown, but not downtown).

Yeah, even here in Metro Manila helipads are found in most of the tall buildings in large part because the cities here adapted the California Building Code (specifically Los Angeles) after an 8 storey building collapsed after a small earthquake in the 60s killing 300 people. The funny thing is because I live at a business district, those helicopters shuttling executives and other VIPs in the morning are essentially my alarm clocks because of the noise.

I don't see anything wrong with Surrey wanting to have a network of helipads, especially if its for emergencies. They can even require them as part of a building code, but I betcha NIMBYs will resist (and with good reason based on my own experience). But it would be weird if the city were the one to pay for them. Helipads are not expensive, but they tend to be demand driven and will be a waste of space when not on top of buildings if there aren't being used for the most part.

[BCPhil]

Originally Posted by mezzanine

Are you serious? For a mayor to announce something like this at a high profile event like this is something out of a news article from the Onion. I get that she is excited about higher level economic development, but at least end with talk about things at least that affects more people. B-line service? Updates on skytrain station renovations? IMO she should have closed with planned improvements on school overcrowding.

I don't know why everyone is picking on you, I get what you are getting at.

It's a small infrastructure enhancement (and I mean small, helipads aren't big) that will benefit next to no one in the city. It's like bragging about a gold plated toilet with an attendant in a private office building; that sure is fancy and might get some rich snob out to visit it, but really, as long as it's not fucking up everyone's lives by wasting thousands of gallons of water or taxpayer money, who cares?

Maybe they will put a helipad in the Sur-Del area near the paper printing plant they are turning to a massive sound stage so that some famous actors don't have to drive across a bridge, but as long as it is not waking people up first thing in the morning, who cares?

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Kisai

But when we talk about which is the best and worst parts of Metro Vancouver to live in, people talk about Surrey like it's Detroit.

No, no, Detroit has its own metro. Surrey is more like Vancouver's Compton.

[mezzanine]

Originally Posted by jhausner

She can't do anything about schools. That's the Provincial Government.

I was talking about this announcement yesterday.

Premier Christy Clark visited Surrey’s Panorama Park Elementary school Friday to announce 2,700 more student spaces for the overcrowded district.

The spots include 600 new seats through “rapid expansion projects" at Sullivan Woodward Hill and Panorama Park elementary schools.

The remaining 2,100 student spaces will be created through two new schools - a Grandview Heights secondary (expected to be completed by the end of 2020) and a Clayton North elementary (expected to be completed by the end of 2019).

The province also committed to buy new land for a new elementary school in Port Kells.

The projects come with a price tag of about $100 million. The province will foot about $74 million of the bill, with the district shelving out the rest

Maybe Christy wanted first dibs on the announcement but this is good news to more business people than a network of helipads. And surrey has skin in this, $25 million is coming from the city. Why wouldn't she want to end the speech with this?

-------

Last I checked also SkyTrain and B-Line service is under Translink's control which is again the Provincial Government.

Did you even read the link to Daryl?

There are 5 of the new 96 B-Line buses in service today, which has me thinking that by now there should be some excitement in the city regarding this brand-new transit infrastructure. The new buses are absolutely wonderful: they’re smooth and quiet; have more space inside for passengers; and feature security cameras, modern LED lighting and air-conditioning. These are the first hybrid diesel-electric buses in Surrey, and it is the first time that Surrey’s bus depot has received brand new buses (instead of old hand-me-downs) in 17 years.

While great investments like these tend to come with big political photo-ops, only TransLink seems to be bothering with any sort of advertisement about the fact that there are new buses in Surrey.

The City of Surrey’s own Twitter feeds are blank, the Facebook page is blank, and not one Councillor or the Mayor has offered a single word about the new buses. No one from the city had anything to say about the buses during the time before their arrival, and this has continued now that many of them are in service. I thought politicians in this city really cared about transit issues, but it seems that riders are expected to enjoy the new buses without even a single word from their representatives

A BoT lunch, a great opportunity to promote for free this recent city-building news, missed.

--------

Did you actually mean "Premier?" Seems like you are confused the two.

Please. If Hepner talked about going it alone on the LRT lines without victoria i'm sure it's within her office to talk about transit, schooling and crime.

[trofirhen]

It is done rather this way, in fact, in São Paulo. Enormously larger city.Wealthy helicopter clientele.
But, nevertheless, they do it. Won't you read the link. It's interesting.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/20/brazil
Think of it this way :- could it be adapted in scope and price to a certain clientele and service level in MetroVan, though the idea seemingly rejected. I was wondering if it could be 'reworked' for Gr_VAN.
Without naming names, such a service might be the preferred method among some business people and investors. Just remember the Lamborghini racing club. This might relate.

[cornholio]

Sao Paulo is actually trying to cut down on the number of active helipads and helicopters. Mostly because there are too many and they never regulated the stuff and now their running into various issues. Also Sao Paulo has huge inequality and poor planning. There are very wealthy individuals that have zero intention of ever mixing with the general population, yet alone dealing with the incredible congestion to get from their enclaves to the various office districts.

Helicopters are loud so I am not a fan of regular service, it negatively effects everyone in the entire city. On the other hand a few strategically located helipads are a attractive amenity. But yeah, if they cant reduce the noise level I would be against allowing any sort of regular helicopter service across the city. Its pretty bad noise pollution and I say this as someone that isn't allergic to background city noise.

[trofirhen]

Yes, what you say is true. The noise would be unlivable.
That said, I wonder if there any helicopter designers out there trying to build "a quieter helicoper?"

[scryer]

Originally Posted by jhausner

Surrey is trying to grow up and attract commercial and office buildings. This is one of the steps toward that. Not just executives either, movie industry uses helicopters quite a bit and for larger productions will often fly stars out to the Fraser Valley via helicopter. There's a lot of filming that takes place South of Fraser.

For someone with money, $120-$150 is nothing. I've worked for people who fart $10,000.

I do agree with this a lot. It builds Surrey into a little bit of a market that isn't catered to by other cities of the Lower Mainland. Not only will it serve the executive clientele but it can also serve emergency purposes too. I mean with that "Big One" is on the tip of everyone's tongues and it surely wouldn't hurt to have preemptive helicopter assistance south of the Fraser River. Also the Abbotsford airport is just a stone's throw away so it helps them out too by creating jobs to provide more basic maintenance to these helicopters.

I think that this kind of development will help catalyze Surrey's changes a little.

Like I said before, I would like to see this more privately funded (if anyone has got a link or a quote, please post it) than publicly funded. If this is being mostly publicly funded then I'm against it as I would rather have my tax dollars serve me rather than some fat cats who wipe their asses with $100 bills.

But yeah kids, helicopters aren't the worst thing to happen to Surrey. And if you're so concerned about the noise just know that there would be regulations as to when they would fly the skies.

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

Originally Posted by trofirhen

That said, I wonder if there any helicopter designers out there trying to build "a quieter helicoper?"

there are, but due to costs and the difficulty of doing it, that is currently reserved for the military, and normally only Black Ops type things where stealth is required; this of course is due to the cost.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by Kisai

Part of attracting business requires solving long-term problems. Surrey has gangland problems, that is a danger to everyone and brings down not only property values but investment opportunities. The crime problem should have been at the top of the list a decade ago.

Metro Vancouver and the province has gangland problems. If it was exclusively Surrey why would the rest of the cities pool resources to fight it?

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

Metro Vancouver and the province has gangland problems. If it was exclusively Surrey why would the rest of the cities pool resources to fight it?

Because the drug problem is not centralized to Surrey. Sure the shootings are almost exclusively in Surrey, but the drugs end up in Vancouver's DTES. I'm sure the RCMP/VPD could tell you which gangs are responsible, but it would only give them more power over the people they imperil. All gang crime in the province is linked, either through money, drugs or weapons.

Surrey is suffering from "Broken Windows".

Other cities within Metro Vancouver are ignoring symptoms of disasters looming, but isn't violent crime, at their own peril as well (*cough*real estate money laundering*cough*.)

[fredinno]

if the millionares want it, they should pay for it.