BePartofthePlan consultation: What we have heard so far
BePartofthePlan consultation: What we have heard so far
So our BePartofthePlan consultation period ends on June 30, but I thought you might be interested in what we’ve heard so far.
Check out minutes and comments from our in-person community consultations—they’re on the community workshop page of the TransLink website, but I’ll also post them here:
- Livability Forum: minutes, comments
- Langley: minutes, comments
- Surrey: minutes, comments
- White Rock: minutes, comments
- Burnaby: minutes, comments
- North Vancouver: minutes, comments
Minutes and comments are coming soon from this week’s workshops in Coquitlam, Maple Ridge, and Richmond: keep an eye on the community workshop page for those.
We’ll also have summaries of the online discussions and game once those sections of the consultation are complete.
Remember, as of June 30, we’ll be turning off the It’s Your Move game and winding down forum discussion – so if you haven’t tried the game or posted in the forums yet, do it soon!
The old site
Also, as you might recall, before we launched this site on June 1, there was another version of BePartofthePlan.ca that invited your comments.
Well, that old site didn’t just disappear. You can still visit the archived version here: bepartoftheplan.fcvhost.com.
We read through every single comment and made sure to capture all of your feedback from the old site, too. If you’re curious, here’s the summaries of all the suggestions you guys gave to us.
What was the point of going through a consultation process when it sounds like Ken Hardie has already decided that the Evergreen line is dead? Is that what you heard in your consultation, because I was under the impression that the majority of people wanted investments in rapid transit.
Hi Chris,
I’m not sure if you’ve seen the three options we presented in the public consultation. Out of the three options presented, funding for the Evergreen Line falls under the most expensive plan, the $450 million “On Track to 2040” plan. That’s because any kind of train rapid transit construciton is very expensive — if you see my earlier post from the APTA rail conference in Chicago, you can see some comparison situations from other cities in America.
So anyway, the public consultation was to help us know where you guys want us to shoot for with our transportation priorities. And so this process definitely let us know that rapid transit is a priority for our region, including the Evergreen Line.
The unfortunate thing is that through our current funding mechanisms (property tax, fares, etc), we don’t actually have the capacity to raise funds all the way to $450 million and make the Evergreen Line and other rapid transit expansion a reality. To achieve that extra money, we would have to introduce new revenue sources to the region in the future, and hopefully bring in more funding through those mechanisms.
However, as of right now, we do not have the money to build the Evergreen Line, and so I think Ken was just making that clear. We know everybody wants rapid transit, and we want to make that happen! But if we don’t have the money to build it, it is sort of awkward to promise the Line will be built right away. I hope this helps somewhat.
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