This is what is getting built in our region.
Monday morning, April 22:
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This is just part of the Cape Horn Interchange, leading on to the Port Mann Bridge.
In a story by Jeff Nagel in the Surrey Leader, the Premier articulated two populist policies: natural-gas revenues will be used to get tolls lowered and, I presume, eventually off the Port Mann. And voters will have a veto over TransLink taxes.
So, where does this take us?
Will roads, bridges and tunnels be approved without transparent public process, but transit expansion will require an American-style referendum – and, most likely, the accompanying battle. That would change the culture of our local politics.
And it would certainly delay commitments to more transit. Meanwhile, Motordom accelerates.
Given the scale of what is being built (see above), Motordom, not transit, is likely to be the shaping force South of the Fraser – maybe the only significant force. The next generation will have no choice; they will have to depend on their vehicles to get around. This is a doubling-down on the high-energy, high-carbon way of life of the 20th century.
And it sounds like it’s shaping up to be more like a War on Transit than on a War on the Car.
Speaking about helping families, relieving poverty… for every car a family could do without owning (given convenient alternatives) they would get the equivalent of an $8,000 tax-free bonus (the annual cost of car ownership). Take away say $3,000 to pay for bus, car-share, taxi, they’re still $5,000 ahead. Is there any other gov’t initiative that could deliver such an immediate palpable economic benefit?
Classic status quo bias – we’ve been spending billions on roads with no oversight for a generation so we don’t need to defend continuing on this way. Transit is a weird, strange new thing so it needs to justify itself for every project.
The liberals are dinosaurs. At one point they should become extinct. Their transportation policies are based on 1950’s thinking. Roads first. Move the cars! Build roads until the land is covered. Why not use this prosperity fund to actually fund low carbon transportation? We can call the fund “Pacific Carbon Trust”.