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►THE ISSUES

 

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A Liveable Region Coalition Initiative

Tel: 604-736-7732

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Comparing the Livable Region vision with Minister Falcon's Highway vision

While freeway expansion has been proposed by Minister Falcon as the only solution to traffic congestion, it is frequently overlooked that the GVRD and local municipal governments have been steadily implementing a broad plan which seeks to tackle congestion while enhancing the quality of life for residents and preserving valuable greenspace. This plan, the Livable Region Strategic Plan (LRSP), has been the motivation for billions of dollars in transportation investments (2 SkyTrain lines, 2 more rapid transit lines under development, B-line bus routes, bus schedule improvements, cycling route improvements, and pedestrian facilities, etc). The LRSP has also guided significant urban development in the many town centres throughout the region.
How do Minister Falcon’s freeway expansion plans mesh with the significant investments we are making in the LRSP?

COMPARISON OF THE LRSP’S CONGESTION CONTROL MEASURES AND MINISTER FALCON’S FREEWAY EXPANSION PLANS:

Congestion reduction within the LRSP

Minister Falcon’s congestion reduction recipe

The LRSP seeks to reduce congestion through reducing the need for automobile trips. This is accomplished through:

  • building complete communities, where people can travel to work, school, shopping within their own communities by walking, cycling, transit or short car trips
  • concentrating growth in designated town centers which can easily be serviced by transit, and connecting the town centers via efficient transit services as we are seeing with SkyTrain and B-Line Buses
  • providing real transportation choices so that residents can comfortably choose the mode of transportation which is appropriate for the trip they are making.
The Minister seeks to reduce congestion by expanding the general road space on a well-established corridor which connects the dense urban core to the fastest growing municipalities of the region. This plan:
  • provides more of the same, car-only transportation, on a route which already has plenty of vehicle capacity and absolutely no alternatives
  • encourages low-density, single-use urban development which cannot be easily accessed with transit or other forms of low impact transportation
  • encourages car-dependent communities and lifestyles
  • shifts development away from town centers to cheaper undeveloped land through the illusion of free transportation infrastructure

While the LRSP attempts to address the structural causes of congestion, the Minister’s plan addresses the symptoms. Moreover the Minister’s solution sets in motion land-use decisions which ensure the ultimate failure of his transportation project. Such land-use decisions along with single-mode transportation investments ensure that congestion will be a significant part of life in our region for generations to come.

Make no mistake, both the LRSP and road expansion are attempting to deal with congestion. But for a billion dollars of your money, do you want solutions that address the root cause or merely the symptoms? Even more significantly, do you want different levels of government funding transportation projects which compete with or work against existing transportation investments? Given that both levels of government are trying to reduce congestion, shouldn’t they be working together?

We would welcome transportation investments from the provincial government which accelerate the implementation of the LRSP throughout the region, not work against it and make it less practical to implement sustainable transportation solutions in the long run.


A Livable Region Coalition initiative
Tel: 604-736-7732

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