Hey everyone: you’re invited to a Transportation Forum we’re hosting on Monday, June 1!

Here’s the location and time:
Waterfront Ballroom,
at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel
900 Canada Place Way, Vancouver BC
8 a.m. to 9 a.m. (registration and breakfast)
9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. (presentations and discussion)

Please register online to attend this event: space is limited!

A chance to review TransLink’s draft 2010 10-Year Transportation and Financial Plan

The public, key TransLink stakeholders and user groups are all invited to this forum. It’s an opportunity for you to review, comment and discuss TransLink’s draft 2010 10-Year Transportation and Financial Plan.

As of right now, this plan is currently being developed, and is being done after much consultation with stakeholders, local government and the public on the goals and values identified in Transport 2040, as well as the challenges and opportunities we face in the development of this 2010 10-Year Plan.

You can read more about Transport 2040 and the transportation challenges facing our region at BePartofthePlan.ca.

Four transportation experts will share their advice

Four experts from New York City, the San Francisco Bay area, and Toronto will be at the forum to talk about how they are responding to similar transportation issues in their regions. They are:

• Petra Todorovich – Director of America 2050 – a national urban infrastructure and growth strategy planning initiative in the United States.
• Robert Yaro – President of the Regional Plan Association – America’s oldest independent metropolitan policy, research and advocacy group. Bob will be speaking about New York City’s sustainability plan and the progress being made toward achieving that city’s transportation goals.
• John Howe – General Manager for investment strategy and projects with Metrolinx – formerly the Greater Toronto Transit Authority
• Steve Heminger – Executive Director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission – the regional transportation planning and finance agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area.

As well, our CEO Tom Prendergast will be speaking about TransLink’s progress and plans. (If you haven’t seen it yet, Tom has a video over at the Vancouver Sun, where he discusses our future challenges.)

Remember to register online to attend, as space is limited!

What if I can’t make it to this forum?

Don’t worry, you can still weigh in.

In June, nine community workshops will be held at locations throughout Metro Vancouver, so you can discuss and comment on the draft 2010 10-Year Transportation and Financial Plan.

(We’ll be in Vancouver, Langley, Surrey, White Rock, Burnaby, North Vancouver, Coquitlam, Maple Ridge, and Richmond: here’s the full list of times and dates.)

The workshops are 2.5 hours long and will also explain what challenges and opportunities we face in the future, plus what TransLink has been doing over the past 10 years. You can register for those nine workshops already too!

And if you can’t make those either, BePartofthePlan.ca will continue to host an online discussion to get your feedback.

As mentioned before, we’re going to revamp that site with all the info about the 2010 10-Year draft plan in June, plus resources from the community workshops to help you learn about the challenges we face in the future. So you’ll be able to examine everything online and bring us your thoughts.

Hope to see you out at the forum, one of the workshops, or at the online discussion!