Despite their occasional sniping, our three local governments joined forces this week to form a municipal transportation committee to work on joint transportation priorities.
It’s about time; and we mean that quite literally. Our commutes are growing longer and our fuses shorter.
Before anyone gets excited about expanded roadways and more lanes of traffic, let’s remember that building your way out of gridlock remains a popular, roll-up-your-sleeves solution that’s not working, hasn’t worked, and isn’t likely to work in the future.
A “third crossing” is a similarly crowd-pleasing idea that becomes less pleasing when you realize there’s no great, untouched road network where another bridge can attach.
If we want value for dollar, you can’t do better than public transit. Stats from TransLink show buses only account for two per cent of the vehicles that cross the Lions Gate Bridge but they carry 25 per cent of the people. That’s success worth building on, yet “Sorry … Bus Full” might be mistaken for the name of our bus routes.
We’re pleased that staff will compare notes and priorities but that’s the least our three governments can do. If they really want to speak with one political voice, they should consider erasing the nonsensical political boundaries between them.
It’s easy for senior levels of government to ignore 21 mayors and councillors with disparate agendas. They might have a much harder time closing their ears to a single voice speaking for 180,000 voting, tax-paying residents.
If we can get these politicians moving, we can get traffic moving too.
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