The @translink expansion of rapid transit to Surrey (meeting report)

photo credit: aksynth

I was recently invited by Translink to an informational meeting of a few local transportation-focused bloggers, plus a few of the most visible local ones. I really enjoyed this targeted, focused event where we received information on the public consultation taking place around the proposals for rapid transit to Surrey. Having visited Surrey recently in the evening this meeting was rather timely.

It took me over 2 hours to get to Guilford from UBC. The only reason I commuted that far and for that long was that I was going for dinner at my good friend Beth Snow’s apartment.

At the same time as consideration is being given to Surrey’s rapid transit, there’s also a proposal for rapid transit on the Broadway corridor to UBC. Seeing as I am a UBC faculty member (and I had to live through the horrors of transit on Broadway while I was a graduate student and even now that I am faculty), I posed the question to Jhenifer Pabillano, Jeff Busby and Erin McConnell from Translink:

So, which one of the two proposals will you favor, given the financial constraints of not being able to do both?

Not surprisingly (we are, after all, talking about a government agency), the response we got from Translink was that both options were being considered simultaneously. Stephen Rees mentioned in his post that he didn’t think this response was credible. Neither do I. Lucky for Translink, a few of my students next term in POLI 350A Public Policy will be looking at both options next term as their final project. And then I’m going to compare what my students’ analysis reported to what Translink publicly explores.

I will fully credit my good friend Erin McConnell with the kind invitation (formerly President of Wilcox PR, Erin is now working with Translink. Trust me, Coast Mountain did a fantastic job and a very smart decision in hiring her. Erin is a true specialist in the field of communications, and especially crisis communications, which is something that Translink needed to strengthen its team on – how to respond to online and offline criticisms – heck, I’ve been a tough critic in the past – you may remember some of my criticisms – but lately, Translink has done a lot of work to improve its communication, particularly online).

Anyhow, I need to caveat my post. I teach Public Policy, and Environmental Policy. BUT I am not a specialist in transportation policy, so I am not going to try and explore the intricacies of the proposal itself. I do have graduate-level training in urban and economic geography and thus I understand well how the system will work, and as a policy analyst, I do provide advice to governments on how to choose amongst policy options (specific to environment).

The meeting was attended by Rebecca Bollwitt (Miss604), Karen Quinn Fung, Stephen Rees and Carrie Saxifrage from the Vancouver Observer. I think both Carrie and Stephen provide more in-depth accounts than I can possibly provide here. I am not sure if Karen has reviewed the meeting, but if she has, I will link to her post.

It was, as Stephen said, nice to be invited (it was particularly nice for me because, beyond being a blogger, I am an academic and I look at public policy proposals from an academic eye). Even if I am not an expert in transportation policy, I am aware of what the challenges are when a government agency is under financial constraints and has to decide amongst different policy choices. I am pretty sure that this will be a challenging exercise and I look forward to seeing it unfold.

I strongly believe we provided good feedback for Translink on how they should present this information to the general public, and I do hope they will take into account our commentaries. By the same token, I thought it was important to report on the meeting.