LRT: Wrong Choice for Surrey.

Surrey City Hall, regardless of the questions on the plebiscite, is still pushing to link a LRT development plan with the YES vote on advertising for the plebiscite. Those with Better Transit For Surrey would like Surrey City Hall to refrain from linking LRT as a "YES" platform and restrict themselves to voting YES for a better transit system regardless of whether the outcome is Skytrain or some other mode of rapid transit. A plebiscite is supposed to be fair and impartial. Not linking one rapid transit type to a Yes or No vote without consideration for the other side in the matter. In fact, here is absolute proof that they are trying to link the "YES" platform with Light Rail

Such misinformation from the Light Rail for the Lower Mainland group and the highly noted accidents from various LRT systems across North America and Europe will be common-place in Surrey; should the LRT lines go down high-traffic corridors such as Fraser Highway, 104th Avenue and King George Boulevard.

Situations such as this have occured in the Calgary "C" line and are continuing to plague a lot of LRT systems across North America.

And most people in the Lower Mainland are utilizing rapid transit to get to work; most of those employed are employed downtown which means regardless of Mayor Linda Hepner's statements that Skytrain is unsightly and will cut the city in half; it still is the most efficient way of getting downtown. The farther out you go, the travel time grows exponentially. If the LRT is constantly getting clogged down in traffic going towards the Surrey Central location, then it will make it impossible to achieve the commute times that Hepner is stating in her support of LRT. The only way that commute time to downtown will be cut down is to put in a SkyTrain line from Langley to fully connect with SkyTrain at King George Station and make King George a thru-station with the terminus being at Langley Center.

Any other way would be ludicrous. Has Metrotown suffered for not being the terminus point of a LRT line - it's been running on a Skytrain line since 1986 and Metrotown Center has been expanding - they have put in a large condo complex in Metrotown. The Rogers business towers have expanded from one to two to three in the past fifteen years. The entire argument that LRT will slow transit down so that business can grow and citizens can do shopping is laughable.

Transit is primarily so that people who work in the downtown core can live in outlying areas thus decreasing the population density of the downtown core and allowing residents in the downtown area to have some room to breathe.

The Lower Mainland is a metropolis made up of many outlying cities combined together in an urban sprawl. When you look at Google Maps, you will see that Vancouver/Lower Mainland shows up even more clearly on the map than Toronto does. We are socked into a Valley hemmed in by mountains somewhat restricting our growth, whereas Toronto can sprawl out with no mountains in sight. Pretty soon, the only way to go will be up, for Vancouver and those who have chosen to make their homes in places such as Langley will need to be able to count on an efficient grade-separated transit system to be able to get from their places of residence to the downtown core in Vancouver. Right now, the bus system is not cutting it. LRT doesn't take off much time off the bus times with average times being cut off are between 1 and 4 minutes. Whereas SkyTrain would be able to do much better at a constant 80km/hr clip and no traffic lights, minimal stops for Skytrain Stations along the route and it would shave close to 16 to 20 minutes off total commute time.

LRT is the wrong choice for Surrey, but Linda Hepner appears to be hell-bent on pushing that form of "slow"-transit through. I can only hope that people are listening and will oppose LRT because as it stands a 1-4 minute savings in time is not a savings at all. LRT has been proven to be the WRONG CHOICE for Surrey.