 | Saturday, February 12, 2022
Reading this online? Sign up to get this delivered to your inbox every Friday. | | The megaprojects of TransLink’s current 10-year plan have been approved. What comes next? | | |  | | | Extending the Millennium Line to UBC, or getting rapid transit on the North Shore: choose one.
That could be the dilemma that Metro Vancouver mayors face later this year.
Why? Well, the main goals of the current TransLink Mayors’ Council's 10-year plan have been completed — including funding for a SkyTrain to Langley City and the Millennium Line extension to Arbutus — and it’s time to start deciding what the priorities will be in the next 10-year plan.
Which might be why politicians on the North Shore are stepping up their campaign.
“Right now, TransLink is in the process of setting its priorities, and we want to communicate our united support,” said District of North Vancouver Mayor Mike Little.
He was explaining why his municipality passed a unanimous motion this week — on the same day that West Vancouver and the City of North Vancouver did — asking the Mayors’ Council to prioritize what is being called the “Burrard Inlet Rapid Transit” project. The specific technology and budget haven’t been determined, but the proposal would be a line from Park Royal in West Vancouver to the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge, crossing the Burrard Inlet and then either going south to Burnaby’s Metrotown or west to Vancouver’s Waterfront Station.
One of the biggest arguments North Shore politicians are making is that literally everywhere else in Metro Vancouver has gotten a new bridge, rapid transit line or highway in recent decades, while they haven’t.
“We haven't had a lane increase to the North Shore since 1960, and our population more than doubled since that time,” said Little.
At the same time, Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart has made extending the Millennium Line one of his top priorities. UBC holds considerable sway with provincial and federal governments. And Vancouver and Surrey control nearly a majority of the votes on the Mayors’ Council.
In a perfect world for local governments, the province and federal government would give billions of dollars to fund all the items on their wish list, including further electrification of the bus fleet, a gondola to SFU, and more service south of the Fraser.
But these days, we live in a fairly imperfect world. TransLink is also asking for hundreds of millions of dollars to make up for ridership revenue losses from the pandemic. It’s conceivable only one megaproject could go to the top of the pecking order.
Which means the regional politicking in the months to come could have sizable impacts for how people move around Metro Vancouver in future decades.
| | |  | | | | | The first release of Census 2021 data came Wednesday, and with it came updated population figures for every city in the country.
As always, attention gravitated towards the places with the biggest population increases (like Langford and Kelowna) and larger communities with decreases (like Port Moody and Esquimalt). For local politicians, it’s generally assumed that a growing population is better than a declining one — it denotes a certain vibrancy.
Which may be why the mayors of Esquimalt and Port Moody argued the data wasn’t relevant.
"Port Moody's growth is just now revving up and is set to exceed targets, which has many of us concerned,” said Port Moody Mayor Rob Vagramov, who has spent much of his political career advocating for a slowdown in the city’s growth.
“I don’t understand the reduction because everything we see is indicative of growth,” said Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins, who claims recent approvals of new housing will reverse the tide.
In both cases, it may be true. But it could also become a point of contention in October’s municipal election. | | |  | | | 1. Vancouver | | | What do Mayor Kennedy Stewart and Texas Senator Ted Cruz have in common? Very little, but they managed to tussle on Twitter over pandemic protests last weekend. Meanwhile, council approved $1.5 million in funding for 10 tiny homes without bathrooms or kitchens, while rejecting a request to give $10,000 to a legal challenge against Quebec’s Bill 21.
Read more in Vancouver Is Awesome | | |  | | | 2. Delta | The proposed $3.5 billion expansion to the Roberts Bank terminal is not going over well in the municipality where it resides. Council voted unanimously this week to ask the federal government to deny or postpone the change, due to environment concerns they believe aren’t sufficiently addressed. Whether Ottawa will agree is another question.
Read more in the Delta Optimist | | | |  | | | 3. Lytton | More than seven months after most of it burned down, the provincial government is dealing with criticism that it hasn’t helped Lytton move fast enough to rebuild. This week, it introduced legislation intended to let it rewrite its governance laws, and announced an extra $8.3 million for recovery. However, actual construction is still months away. Read more | | | | | |  | | | 4. White Rock | Can a newly elected council with radically different ideas about development stop a building that has only gotten halfway through the approval process? In effect, B.C.’s highest court ruled they could, as White Rock won a legal battle against a developer that was blocked in its attempts to build a 12-storey condo in the heart of the municipality.
Read more | | | |  | | | 5. Pickleball | We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again — pickleball conflicts are cropping up almost as fast as pickleball courts. In just the last week, there have been different stories published in West Vancouver, Port Moody, Pitt Meadows and and Mayne Island, all playing out in different ways. You could say all the roads that lead them there were winding. Read more in the Tri-City News | | | | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
forwarded to you. | | | | That's it for this week! In the meantime, check out the latest headlines at cbc.ca/bc and follow our municipal affairs reporter Justin McElroy on Twitter. And if you have any questions you might want answered in a future mailbag, drop Justin a line at metromatters@cbc.ca. | | | |
