The provincial government’s announcement of a 10-year transportation plan for B.C., in the midst of a heated campaign over whether there should be an additional sales tax within Metro Vancouver to fund transit and transportation projects, demonstrates clearly the fundamental transportation problem in B.C.
It is simply this — local, regional and provincial governments are often working at cross-purposes.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley. TransLink has been mandated by the province to serve the Metro Vancouver area. Yet the border between Abbotsford and Langley might as well be the Berlin Wall, given the lack of consultation between TransLink and Metro Vancouver on one hand, and the Fraser Valley Regional District on the other.
The very lack of any improvements for eastern Langley in the Mayors’ Plan for transportation demonstrates this “incommunicado” approach. It appears that TransLink and the mayors don’t want to even acknowedge the large number of commuters who come from Abbotsford and Chilliwack into Metro Vancouver, and, horror of horrors, plan for a transit system that might entice them out of their cars.
Meanwhile, the province has included six-laning Highway 1 between Abbotsford and Langley in its transportation plan. There is no doubt that six lanes will be very helpful at busy times, and this at least acknowledges reality — many people commute from the central and eastern valley to Langley and points west.
The competing approaches show why all levels of government must communicate with each other much better.