It was a strange week last week, as various mayors from around the region talked about TransLink with the kind of critical commentary usually adopted by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Why would a group that nominally has some control over TransLink be criticizing their own creature? Because they feel as they don’t have much control ever since Kevin Falcon, as transportation minister, removed a big part of the decision-making from them in 2007 and passed it on to an newly created, appointed board. (Yes, they get to appoint the board, but that still doesn’t give them direct powers.)
What we’re left with five years later is mayors feeling as though they have to put through tax increases for TransLink to pay for services, but they have little direct say in the billion-dollar operating budget.
That has resulted in tussles over getting an audit, which I reported on here today and here last week. It is also resulting in ongoing discussions between the mayors and Transportation Minister Blair Lekstrom about possible changes in the governing model. More, as they say in the magazine business, TK (to come).
52 responses so far ↓
1 Bill Lee // Feb 22, 2012 at 6:17 pm
@Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 18, 2012 at 8:12 am
Why not a mildly elevated train in one or other of the lanes beside Broadway.
I am thinking of the steam-engine era, still working Wuppertal Schwebebahn (Wuppertal Floating Tram, a suspension railway in Wuppertal, Germany. Its full name is “Electric Highway Installation” )
Been runing since 1903 and transports 25 million a year, 82 thousand a day. 13 km, 22 minutes, and 8 metres above the street. That is homey.
Vossloh Kiepe will supply 31 new articulated cars there, as they do the trolley systems here. and have an office off S.W. Marine Drive.
Use the lanes.
2 MB // Feb 23, 2012 at 1:57 pm
@ Lewis #49, p. 7 of the Design Guide (PDF), Rail Rapid Transit (RRT) in your link to the TransLink studies on Broadway:
Technology: “RRT is an automated or driver-operated rail technology that is powered by electricity. In Metro Vancouver, RRT (e.g. SkyTrain) is automated and operates separately from other road users.”
Alignments: “The RRT Alternative operates primarily in a BORED TUNNEL [emphasis mine] with an elevated section between Great Northern Way and VCC Clark Station to connect with the existing system. A section on University Boulevard [golf course?] is assumed to be cut and cover.”
Your comment,
“The idea is really to build a ‘mixed use’ street, and change the nature of Broadway altogether to something that is equal parts local and cross-town.”
is something I agree with. But my emphasis is on enhancing the pedestrian realm which is a public asset, literally and figuratively, which at present is quite hideous on Central Broadway, but fairly acceptable west of McDonald.
Public streets at the human | pedestrian level need a lot of work in this town. In my opinion, commerce and community will follow up with their own enhancements after a solid and high quality street treatment that strengthens the sidewalk experience on Broadway. This is in addition to people being drawn to its neighbourhoods via a high quality, frequent and pleasant transit experience.