B.C. government expected to announce Translink governance changes
 

Mayors are expected to get more power to make decisions on infrastructure like roads, bridges and public transit.

Is Mayor Robertson gonna build more bike lanes after these changes?
Moonbeam is gonna go nuts on building bike lanes? :suspicious:


Province expected to announce TransLink governance changes | News1130

From the article:

Transportation Minister Todd Stone will speak to the media this morning to discuss the transit referendum and TransLink governance.

There are reports the province will give some powers to the mayors when it comes to our roads, bridges and transit. Stone is expected to make this move, rather than leave everything to the current board of appointed experts which was brought in six years ago in a move to end regional infighting.

Hmm... it just occurred to me that our municipal election is coming up in Nov 2014. Is there anyone better than Bike Boy? If he gets replaced, we likely wouldn't have to put up with more stupid bike lane development on top of what he has already committed us to.

Maybe we can invite Rob Ford to come and run for us. :troll:

won't happen the rich in Vancouver like him (due to building private bike lanes for them and closing roads to cars so they get their own private raods), bike lane junkies will vote him coz of his bike lanes. The homeless will vote him because he provide them with social housing at the cost of the middle class.

The people who don't like him or hate him won't have enough time to vote because they are too busy making ends meet.

People who can't even take 5 minutes out of their day to vote have no right to complain.

There's a vocal minority who disagree with the bike lanes (most of whom are found here, Reddit, and trolling on websites like News1130), but most of the people living in Vancouver are either indifferent, or actually welcome them. If there was enough anger about them, then the NPA or another party would have won the last election. I reckon that most of the people who complain are those who live outside of the City of Vancouver; Gregor could care less because they can't vote for or against him and his party. But, hey bike lanes in the City of Vancouver are the main cause of what's wrong with transit in all of Metro Vancouver.
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^^ I'd have to disagree with your assessment on Bike Boy and his bike lanes.

The thing with bike lanes is, I'd imagine that only a (vocal) minority support them. The rest are either indifferent, or find them annoying. But at the end of the day, the bike lanes are pretty much just that -- a big enough annoyance that a lot of people hate them, but it doesn't quite reach the level of being a deal breaker. That is to say, it'd be pretty stupid to vote against Gregor Robertson simply on the bike lanes alone. There are other much bigger issues that are more important to the functioning of the city than bike lanes, and people will vote for Robertson in spite of his stupid stance on bike lanes.

TransLink Mayor's Council plan includes Broadway subway, Surrey LRT

The TransLink Mayors' Council says transit will need $7.5 billion over the next decade to fund a massive expansion, which voters are expected to have some say over in an upcoming referendum.

The plan, released Thursday, aims to give Surrey two light rail lines, a Vancouver subway along Broadway from VCC Clark to Arbutus, 400 new buses to boost service by 25%, 80% more service at night, 11 new B-Line routes - up from two - and much more.

The mayors expect governments - municipal, provincial and federal - to chip in $3.95 billion.

The rest – $1.9 billion after new revenue from expanded service is calculated - will have to come from about a half billion dollars per year more in revenue.

To get that funding, the mayors want the provincial government to shift the BC Carbon Tax to transit funding - about half of what will be needed.

The rest would eventually come from road tolls in one form or another - possibly on highways, and even city-wide tolls, such as one present in Singapore, the mayors' vision said in its list of examples.

But many of the major projects, such as LRT or a new four-lane Pattullo, won't be completed until the later part of the plan.

Big expansion in Mayor's Council transit plans | Vancouver 24 hrs

And Mayors? Council approves transportation vision | News1130

basically in end taxpayers is going to foot the bill as usual. I agree there should be more service. But they should really focus on improving current service first. There are tons of apartments being build around major skytrain stations (Brentwood, Metrotown, Marine Drive and Oakridge). We need to make sure current service meets future demands first before expanding......

Aren't tax payers at the foot of every bill, ever? That's how the government has money; we pay them.

No different then a rich man giving his wife money, having her buy groceries and her claiming "look how hard i worked for these groceries you eat!"

Well, the mayor's council has approved it:

Mayors? Council approves transportation vision | News1130
The increase in SeaBus frequency seems a bit odd to me, and I wonder if there is the ridership to support it. But granted, I am not a SeaBus rider at all, and that 50% service increase probably doesn't really amount to very much in real terms anyway.

The 4 lane tolled Pattullo seems like a very interesting idea, but I can already imagine how controversial it'll be. During the construction phase, in particular, it is likely that traffic across the Fraser River will be even more chaotic, and people will bitch.

I'm all for a new tolled pattulo bridge, although I wish they made it 6 lanes instead. that bridge is terrible and sometimes you have to think long term, it needs to be replaced. As a person that use to take that bridge, I'm glad i no longer have to.

I'm for most of the bike lanes, as I'm in Vancouver and I support them. Vancouver is just following other Large cities and planning their infrastructure for the future. I know many of my friends and co-workers love the bike lanes as well.

Most of the "professionals" in my office building bike to work and the general consensus is that most support the bike lanes. I really hope the bike culture takes off like in other lage cities and more people start using it.

I know this is a Car forum so I can understand the hatred.

time to toll all the bridges in the lower mainland and lower the toll fee's all around

They will toll all bridges but won't lower the price lol.

I think you can blame the 4-lane Pattulo replacement on New West. They don't want a bigger bridge because they don't want more traffic through their city - though a bigger bridge might solve some of the congestion issues...

The reason for the sudden increase for traffic on the Pattulo is because don't want to pay the toll (especially truck drives). Toll Pattulo and you will see a decrease in traffic right away. Or for band aid solution for the time being is ban all trucks traffic from Pattulo till it is time to rebuilt and then make it a toll bridge.

Unless all bridges are equally tolled, paying for the Patullo will shunt traffic to the Alex Fraser and we already know how much of a clusterfuck it is there already. Residents south of the Fraser shouldn't have to pay to leave their area, so I support evenly distributed bridge tolls. On the other hand, fuck distance charges they proposed.

The distance charges is just dumb. Basically they are screwing up with people who lives far from their work place. But then as we all know Vancouver, Burnaby in general are pretty pack already and housing price is out of reach for a lot of people (especially if you want a house with a backyard). Coquiltam, Surrey and Detla is another growing city. So the gov is punishing people who have no money to live their work place..........

It makes sense, Toll all bridges and bring tolls down. They already have the infrastructure in place to process the tolls they just need to expand it a bit, add plate readers to the other bridges and they are good to go. Maybe something like $1.00 to $1.25 each way with an option for a monthly pass like they have now.

It will probably never happen but any Govt. who wanted to bring it in I'd support so long as they cut the tolls at least in half. If they leave it at $2.50 and toll them all, fuck that noise. :)

Bullshit. What If you lived in burkville in Richmond? It's about 1km from downtown Richmond but you cannot go anywhere without taking a bridge. 2 road bridge, dinsmore bridge, that swivel bridge and the tall one way bridge they build next to it, or even the bridge just to get into vancouver. You would literally only be able to go to McDonald's , or the airport without being tolled multiple times.

Anyone know the cost details of Port Mann?

Cost of bridge
- scrap from old bridge (should be significant)

estimated vehicle traffic per day
pay off period




I wish this info was public. Maybe it is and i'm not a good googler...

the pay off period doesn't matter. The Province may never take the tolls off... This eventually happened on the Coquihalla, but IIRC about 10 years after it was already paid off

Interesting article I just found... written September 26, 2008

Tolls taken off Coquihalla

I wonder if that will actually happen

Why wouldn't the pay off period not matter? If you figure that out, anything after is just gouging motorists. I dont know about you, but I already have enough hands in my pockets..