The B.C. Liberals and NDP have revealed a big piece of their transportation platforms for the North Shore: Traffic and more traffic.
Specifically, the Liberals are promising to cap annual tolls on the Port Mann Bridge to $500 per year. Not to be outdone, the NDP are promising no tolls at all for the 10-lane, $3.3-billion bridge that already loses money every year.
The foreseeable impact of this is more people south of the Fraser River opting to hop in their cars. Many of them undoubtedly will be headed for our congested streets.
The point of tolls isn’t just to pay for the infrastructure we drive on but rather to make people question whether the single-occupancy vehicle is really the most efficient way for them to get around (hint: it’s not.)
The only party that doesn’t seem to have it out for North Shore residents, as tolling goes, is the Greens.
So why the toxic one-upmanship to the detriment of the rest of us? Surrey is littered with battleground ridings that tend to flip by small margins and so the parties are more concerned with polls than tolls.
It’s true, in the last term, the Liberals put up almost $200 million to finagle the on- and off-ramps at the Ironworkers bridgehead but this is tantamount to buying a bigger belt to combat obesity.
However, there is a way to lower our commute times and our blood pressure. We challenge our political parties to stop thinking about mass appeal and start thinking about mass transit. We need to expand transit, consider congestion pricing, and reduce urban sprawl. Any doctor will tell you, congestion is a symptom. It’s time we started treating the disease.
