Gondola, gondola, gondola!
You may have heard that word, again and again, when it comes to SFU in recent years.
And you’re hearing about it again today after TransLink asked for
feedback on their business case for a gondola linking Burnaby Mountain to the Production Way SkyTrain station.
The announcement got plenty of immediate attention, in part because it came with a drone-centered video of what the gondola ride could look like, along with renderings of what the station (and gondolas themselves) might end up looking like.
But discerning readers might be wondering what, if anything, is actually new.
For
many years
now, the
City of Burnaby and
TransLink have been
studying the gondola, and
consulting about the gondola and
endorsing the idea of a gondola. It’s now at the point where Burnaby, SFU and the Mayors’ Council are on the same page in terms of endorsing both the concept and the
general route.
The project’s business plan does need to be formally endorsed, but it’s a fairly technical exercise, while the questions for the online survey are very basic — “If there was a gondola connection … how likely is it that you would use it?” — and quite short.
The truth is, TransLink doesn’t have the money yet. It’s part of the
$20 billion they’re asking for over the next decade for a host of projects, which have yet to be agreed upon by higher levels of government.
In the meantime, those potential projects — including rapid transit to the North Shore, and a host of rapid buses across the region — are still hypothetical. So the most TransLink can do is the sort of low-budget incremental planning to make things move quicker if funding is approved.
Except now they have renderings. Which are fun for the public to see. Which may be why the gondola is in the news again.
It’s a case of how sometimes, Metro Vancouver governments and their regional entities are very good at talking and studying and consulting about a public infrastructure project that pretty much everyone seems to want.
Finding a way to pay for it, on the other hand, can be a bigger challenge.
