CKNW Editorial
for February 6, 2001

It’s just not good enough Mr Campbell … and the same goes for you Mr Dosanjh. The long suffering public of Greater Vancouver deserve some answers and they will expect them in the next election.

Mr Campbell told us yesterday about what he was going to do about the 7 day a week gridlock on Vancouver streets but I defy anyone to tell me what it was he said. Apart from reminding us that other BC communities have traffic problems what he said, roughly translated, was blah, blah, blah. Which is just what Mr Dosanjh is saying.

The trouble for Mr Campbell is this – Mr Dosanjh will have a program before the election is held if only because he has nothing to lose by promising the moon. He doesn’t expect to win so he can say pretty much whatever he wants. This makes life a bit troublesome for Mr Campbell but that’s what life at the top is all about.

The present mess is everyone’s fault going back to the days when the old BC Electric got rid of the street cars and brought us traffic jamming trolley buses. In more modern times, everyone’s had a crack at solving the problem which perhaps started back in 1968 when the City Council of Vancouver decided that they didn’t want freeways and then were so pleased with themselves they shook hands all around and forgot one niggling little detail – they hadn’t decided what they would do now!

More recent history has BC Hydro involved with levies for transit on the Hydro bill which persist even though BC Hydro has been out of the transit business for years. Since then it’s been like a tennis game … lots of fun provided the ball doesn’t fall into your court. As to the present arrangements that the GVRD through the Greater Vancouver Transit Authority, now known as Translink made with Victoria, the people are left watching two groups of politicians insult one another, each making believe that the other is solely responsible for the mess.

The answer – it’s the money, stupid. No one, either in Victoria or Vancouver, has the faintest idea where the money will come from no matter what solution is reached – nor indeed what, within a thousand miles, it will all cost. Moreover, there is no plan. Oh, there are plans and mock-ups galore – as Mr Campbell said facetiously yesterday, if we had the money we’ve spent on plans the roads would all be fixed. No I’m talking of a plan, finalized, and with times involved.

Here one must lay much of the blame not on poor old Mr Puil, but the province. Once they decided to build and then expand Skytrain it’s been difficult to make plans. This is compounded by the fact that the province is responsible for crossing the harbour. But let me put it this way – before any resident of, say, North Vancouver approves and buys into a transit plan they will demand to know when and how the goodies come to where they live. Ditto almost all the GVRD communities which, not behaving themselves and voting NDP, are not serviced or about to be serviced by Skytrain – though the fact that only NDP communities have Skytrain is, as Vaughn Palmer would say, simply a strange coincidence. People in Richmond will not buy into spending their tax dollars on transit until they can see, with a cost and date attached, what’s in it for them. Oh, Mr Puil has said that it will come for Richmond but how and when? Will it be buses? Will it be Skytrain, as the provincial transit minister predicts? Will it be the Cambie route? Or the Arbutus corridor? And, when?

Vancouver is one of the few international airports of any importance that is not serviced by some form of rapid transit. It’s not only absurd and galling – it acts as a major disincentive to both business and tourism. Note this, then, Mr Campbell and Mr Dosanjh – 2.1 British Columbians will want to know what will be done transit and roads and, critically, when and in what priority before they assent to any new taxes or levies.

I have my prejudices as all do. I think my barber was right when he suggested that a rail line go up the center of the Trans-Canada Highway. I think the old interurban ought to re-instated if only in the short term. And I like the idea of a tunnel to the North Shore. But mine are only a few prejudices within a sea of them. What would satisfy me as a taxpayer, is that there be a full plan, ready to be implemented, such plan including any future Skytrain expansions and a firm timetable as to its fulfillment. Then talk to me about the cost and how it will be borne. And, no, I don’t care all that much which government does what.

I am not unmindful of the transit and transportation problems in the rest of the province. I only note that in most places outside Vancouver the problems, however acute, can be fixed with relatively small amounts of money. Vancouver is BC’s Toronto and when Toronto was Vancouver’s size they already had their transit organized which means that there is damned good public transit in that much maligned town.

No, Mr Campbell, a wooly response to Vancouver’s transit problems just won’t do if only because you can count on your opponent, in an effort to salvage what he can, will promise what he must. After all, half the votes in the province are at stake.