Wow, how did I miss this one — Luongo supports a delay on transportation referendum in Metro Vancouver!
Huh?
I mean the guy’s team hasn’t played the best hockey and some non-believers say you could drive a bus through his five hole. But has he really lost focus of his game and become one of those civic policy wonks?
Ah, no.
Luongo, in this case, is Elio Luongo, the chairperson of the Vancouver Board of Trade. And last week, he and Iain Black, the board’s president and CEO, issued a release to say they supported Transportation Minister Todd Stone’s suggestion the referendum could be delayed until June 2015.
“The efficient flow of goods and people directly affects the economic competitiveness of our region, our province and our country,” Luongo said. “It’s crucial that the public fully understands what’s at stake before going to the polls.”
The referendum, as regular readers will recall, is something Premier Christy Clark promised in the Liberals’ re-election campaign last May. Clark and Stone have both said Metro Vancouver residents need a say on how and whether to fund major transit upgrades in the region.
Stone still hasn’t released a question so it’s speculation as to what form it will take.
As many of us media types reported last week, Stone announced the government is willing to delay the referendum no later than June 30, 2015 and introduce legislation to give mayors “approval powers” over TransLink’s 30-year strategy and 10-year investment plan.
The referendum was originally scheduled to be tied to the municipal elections in November. Stone and the region’s mayors planned to meet Valentine’s Day to hash out further details on what comes next.
Mayor Gregor Robertson, who opposes the referendum, will want to get some clarity on how all of this leads to a subway being built from the Commercial Drive transit hub to the University of B.C.
The former NDP MLA for Vancouver-Fairview and longtime resident of the neighbourhod until he moved to Kits last year, Robertson has seen first-hand the congestion along the Broadway corridor.
Here, again, is why he wants a subway:
• Transit service in the corridor is unable to keep up with the demand of transit users, with an estimated 2,000 riders per morning rush passed up by buses at the Broadway station.
• Broadway is the busiest bus corridor in North America.
• City transportation director Jerry Dobrovolny has said having a subway is key to the city achieving Vancouver’s 2040 transportation plan’s goal of having two-thirds of all trips done by foot, bicycle or transit by 2040.
• The corridor is already home to more than 85,000 people and 100,000 jobs and is expected to grow significantly over the coming decades.
So what’s Stone say about all this?
In a scrum in October 2013, all he could offer me was that major transit improvements requested by Vancouver and Surrey, which wants a $1.8 billion light rail system, will “likely” happen.
When and how, of course, are the questions.
Stay tuned for the answers.
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