I have been shaking my head for the last week, after reading BC Chamber of Commerce CEO John Winter's apparent dismissal of the Mayors' Council proposals for improving transportation in the region. According to “Get referendum campaign rolling now: transit advocate” (BIV issue 1286; June 24–30), Winter said the mayors' $7.5 billion plan does not help the local economy because it focuses on moving only people, not goods: “It completely overlooks anything critical to the economy. … It's really designed to get people out of their cars, onto buses or onto bicycles, of all things.”
Wow. How did Winter get this so spectacularly wrong? The Surrey Board of Trade, the Burnaby Board of Trade, the Vancouver Board of Trade, the Business Council of BC, the Urban Development Institute, UBC and numerous other organizations are all supporting the mayors' vision.
On closer examination, it turns out the B.C. chamber, in spite of Winter's quotes, also supports the mayors: “We would like to congratulate the Mayors' Council on the ‘Regional Transportation Investments – a Vision for Metro Vancouver,' said its June 25 letter to the Mayors' Council. “Our members remain focused, though, on a comprehensive regional goods movement strategy.”
I was unable to reach Winter before deadline, but B.C. chamber VP for policy development Jon Garson elaborated on Winter's comments. The chamber's official policy supports road pricing, “investment in public transit to provide viable alternatives to single passenger vehicle travel” and other features of the Mayors' Council's vision. Garson noted that its concern is the lack of a co-ordinated plan to include goods movement: “The vision is a long way from being a plan that emphasizes goods movement.”
Besides, Garson acknowledges TransLink has only peripheral responsibility for regional goods movement.
The underlying assumption here is that anything not focused on goods movement does not qualify as “critical to the economy.”
Which is rubbish. “Getting people out of their cars”– taking 40 cars off the road by filling one bus – is a huge boost to goods mobility.
Reducing commute-to-work times by 20 to 30 minutes a day is an economic booster. Giving people the option of frequent, dependable, Wi-Fi-enabled transit opens up new productive work time. Lowering the cost of transportation for employees helps employers.
Saving the cost of 200 traffic deaths and 4,000 serious injuries through people shifting from cars to transit lightens the tax load on businesses.
In spite of Winter's over-the-top comments, the tone of the chamber's letter to the mayors is generally supportive. Let's hope Winter reflects this better in future comments. Without united business support, there's no hope for a win in the upcoming referendum.
Congestion suggestion
From a totally unexpected quarter comes a solution to congestion that will cost absolutely nothing!
Condo marketer Bob Rennie has come up with the 20% solution. It's brilliant. Just take away the top 20% of anything that's causing a problem, and the problem goes away!
Rennie told the Urban Development Institute that if you just take the 20% of highest-priced condos and homes out of the mix, the average price of a Metro Vancouver condo falls from $442,086 to $313,000. Take away the top 20% of single-family homes, and the average drops from more than $900,000 to $668,000.
“It takes us out of the most-expensive-place race.”
So if you're concerned about congestion, just take out the 20% of the day when congestion is at its worst – the two 2.4-hour rush periods – and we're out of the most-congested-region race!
Goods movement problem? Just take away the 20% of traffic that's moving goods, and everything's going to be all right.
