More Cars = The Way of the Future for the BC Liberals
This morning on the radio, I heard a sound byte from Kevin Falcon, BC's Minister of Transportation, telling the public that those opposed to the Gateway Project are (I'm paraphrasing) an extremely small minority who have been opposing every infrastructure project for the last 20 years. This is news to me, as I don't remember being opposed to such things when I was six years old.
This dismissal by politicians of opposing views as simply ideological fever betrays the whole idea of the type of government that we have. If anything, I think it should be the mandate of those who have been elected to represent us to listen especially carefully to those who are presenting different viewpoints and maybe even change direction if it seems like that could be reasonably done.
I do not oppose the Gateway Project because of an "ideological view against anything new". I would be all for Mr. Falcon proposing to spend the same taxpayer money on some form of mass transit. Imagine a Park & Ride with free parking somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford with an extension of the Skytrain to said Park & Ride. For those commuting downtown, the choice to avoid the money spent on gas and parking, as well as the decreased commuter time, would be enough to draw sufficient numbers off the existing infrastructure to significantly reduce waits.
Building more roads & highways within cities is a thing of the past. We know how damaging this mode is to the environment, we know that increased capacity only leads to increased trips.
I recently saw a newspaper headline proclaiming that with the Gateway Project built, land values in the Fraser Valley would increase substantially. I wonder how many land developers are active in supporting the Liberal Party. I already know of some that do, and it doesn't seem like such a stretch to me that this could possibly be not much more than the standard corporate/political backscratching, of course at taxpayer expense.
This dismissal by politicians of opposing views as simply ideological fever betrays the whole idea of the type of government that we have. If anything, I think it should be the mandate of those who have been elected to represent us to listen especially carefully to those who are presenting different viewpoints and maybe even change direction if it seems like that could be reasonably done.
I do not oppose the Gateway Project because of an "ideological view against anything new". I would be all for Mr. Falcon proposing to spend the same taxpayer money on some form of mass transit. Imagine a Park & Ride with free parking somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford with an extension of the Skytrain to said Park & Ride. For those commuting downtown, the choice to avoid the money spent on gas and parking, as well as the decreased commuter time, would be enough to draw sufficient numbers off the existing infrastructure to significantly reduce waits.
Building more roads & highways within cities is a thing of the past. We know how damaging this mode is to the environment, we know that increased capacity only leads to increased trips.
I recently saw a newspaper headline proclaiming that with the Gateway Project built, land values in the Fraser Valley would increase substantially. I wonder how many land developers are active in supporting the Liberal Party. I already know of some that do, and it doesn't seem like such a stretch to me that this could possibly be not much more than the standard corporate/political backscratching, of course at taxpayer expense.
posted by Mike at 8:23 AM
2 Comments:
But you have to realize, you cant move freight on mass transit.
Trucks need roads.
I agree this is a valid point, Brandon, and I am not specifically opposed to the improvements to keep transport trucks out of residential/commercial areas, etc. such as the North and South Fraser Perimeter Roads. However, in the case of the twinning of the Port Mann bridge, it seems like it could be a completely viable route as it is if a large percentage of the traffic was funnelled off via transit for commuters.
It seems a quite valid point that all this will accomplish is moving a large bottleneck from Surrey to the offramps of the #1 in Vancouver.
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