WRT a higher gas tax, IIRC a major issue is the south of fraser mayors see it as more punitive to their citizens as they tend to drive more than ppl on the burrard penninsula.

Of course, poor land use on their part got them in that mess in the first place. I’m looking at you dianne watts. you talk streetcars on one side and you plan car-oriented greenfield sprawl on the other side.

“What frustrates and frightens me about this planning proposal is how inherently suburban sprawlish it truly is. Port Kells is so disconnected from the rest of the City right now, and consists of a tiny, rural population, much the same way most of Grandview is. What the City wants to do is massively increase the population in one of the most disconnected areas of Surrey, which will only increase traffic congestion on Highway 1 and the Golden Ears Bridge as there is no easy way to connect this area to transit anytime soon! For all the touting Council is doing about the Town Centres, this type of planning is in complete contradiction with urban, transit connected development. This is Sprawl 101 point blank. It’s sickening.”

http://www.civicsurrey.com/2010/05/28/significant-density-coming-to-tynehead/

#Mezzanine #52

“WRT a higher gas tax, IIRC a major issue is the south of fraser mayors see it as more punitive to their citizens as they tend to drive more than ppl on the burrard penninsula.”

Yes, well – that’s exactly the point, isn’t it?

If South of Fraser mayors want to see more transit, they need to get more people out of their cars in order to justify the investment. What better way to pay for transit improvements in the outlying areas than with a tax that tends to mostly encourage transit use by people in the outlying areas?

“WRT a higher gas tax, IIRC a major issue is the south of fraser mayors see it as more punitive to their citizens as they tend to drive more than ppl on the burrard penninsula.”

I agree with Sean, that’s exactly the point…if we are continuing to build and pay for transit connecting outlying areas to the city, then the best way to encourage usage is by increasing gas prices….it pays for that transit and gets butts in transit seats.

I also find it funny that there is a “gas tax limit” yet no property tax limit. I’m assuming part of this is because the provincial government wants to put the responsibility on the municipal governments for funding, but I still think it’s ridiculous.

Unfortunately given the NDP’s complete opposition to the carbon tax, and the Liberals not wishing to create any new lightening rod issues, I doubt we are going to see any action on this issue for some time to come.

… “why not simply further increase the gas tax?”

Geller 50

et al, 51-56

“Why should they not be obligated to build ‘urban highways’ which include an adequate transit system in the urban areas of the Province? Please tell me what is the difference.”

McCreery 57

Now if we could have a cuppa in our hands while we were doing this, then my enjoyment would be complete.

True political courage, it was stated on Friday night on the PBS Newshour political analysis segment, comes from pissing off the extreme right AND left wings.

Well, the answer here comes from the Right (sorry Left). Too many taxes can cast a pall over economic functioning.

Bill’s comment gives us a way out. Rather than increasing taxes, we need to be more productive around growth. All that whining that we do here about planning transportation and community development at the same time saves money, and generates new tax revenue. That’s the kind of new taxes that keep economies roaring for centuries.

When I deplore spending transportation gold to build guilded transit in Coquitlam and Port Moody, I have my eye on the same build out I see in Surrey. Furthermore, the lipstick-on-the-pig efforts to add density with towers at the Skytrain stops is just more suburban sprawl in a different package.

The other way not to raise taxes is to get the urbanism right. Here, too, I see progress.

…21st Century.

the planners who made several glaring ommissions in their “analysis” of Gateway, one of them being higher prices of fossil fuels.

It cannot be emphasized enough just how antiquated the Gateway Project is (and it’s also important to remember there are 2 “Gateway Projects” – the one we usually discuss that affects the Lower Mainland, and the overarching project designed to facilitate trade with Asia…and which will cost $21 billion).

One of the points I tried to make on the thread about Gordon Campbell’s legacy was one of the underlying and grossly mistaken assumptions of the Gateway Project was that the U.S. consumer would be able to rack up their credit card debts buying cheap imports in perpetuity. We know now that’s not the case. The second mistaken assumption was, as MB ably notes, that fuel costs would remain within the realm of affordability.

To this last point, I would like to contribute 2 items. The first is 2010 World Energy Outlook from the hippies of the International Energy Agency (executive summary here). Having never mentioned it their previous annual World Energy Outlooks, guess what makes an appearance in this year’s edition? If you say “Peak Oil” you are correct! And guess what? Peak oil has, according to the Birkenstock wearing members of the IEA, already happened …in 2006. Simply to maintain current production not only requires development of unconventional fields like the Tar Sands, natural gas, undeveloped currently known fields, but it also requires in disconcertly large part the discovery and development of fields not yet known. Yeah, good luck with that going smoothly.

The second item is a study for the free-market types who believe the investment market:

“At the current pace of research and development, global oil will run out 90 years before replacement technologies are ready, says a new University of California, Davis, study based on stock market expectations. The forecast was published online Monday (Nov. 8) in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. It is based on the theory that long-term investors are good predictors of whether and when new energy technologies will become commonplace.”

Link available upon request. Personally I do not believe the investment market is a reliable predictor of future trends – investors seem to have just as much in common with lemmings as they do with sober analysists – but that’s just me.

We should be building mass transit on an enormous scale right now. Either that, or learn to ride a horse. Oh wait, we can’t afford those anymore either…

@ MB 61. You missed the point of what I said, which was the Province “be obligated to build ‘urban highways’ which include an adequate transit system in the urban areas of the Province?”.

I was using the ‘urban highway’ in the broadest sense to include transit &, I thought I was clear that I meant lots of transit when I said “….adequate transit…”. So, we agree but, I am not informed enough to know whether or not the Gateway projects are justified. But, perhaps it will, when completed give us the time we need to shift our regional transportation modes to start to achieve the savings you mention.

In any case your figures are interesting & useful.

As a vancouverite, I do support some measures of gateway (the GEB provides a new and direct link from the Pitt Meadows intermodal yard to Hwy 1, the re-introduction and acceptance of tolls in metro vancouver, rapid bus initiatives). Even the NFPR has benefis, such as replacing the one-way bailey bridge allowing for more intense use of existing induatrial areas and avoiding eating up more land to develop more industrial lots.

I suppose it jibes with my view of vancouver being a hub of activity, including commercial activity. IMO the port is an asset to the metro area, not unlike a natural resource, to be developed smartly, with a view on the medium to long-term.

I would think that the major factor here is not port activity or trucking, but the SOV. Hopefully we can discourage SOV use smartly so we can get people onside and not have a backlash.

It is interesting to note that traffic on the GEB is below projections, arguably due to tolling. I think when the new PMB we will be surprised – I suspect bridge traffic will be down, but i fear more traffic from the cape horn to cassiar, unless TL can be able to introduce more wide-spread road pricing.

@ Bill # 64.

I understood what you said, Bill. It’s just that Gateway was justified as a highway first an foremost over transit. Transit is an afterthought.

Sure, they’ve “designed” two lanes of the new 10-lane (TEN lane!) Port Mann bridge to “rapid transit”, but there is no hint of what that will be, other than some initial buses. Does someone in government have a Coquitlam-Surrey light rail line deep in in their pocket?

@ mezz #66 : “I would think that the major factor here is not port activity or trucking, but the SOV. Hopefully we can discourage SOV use smartly so we can get people onside and not have a backlash.”
= = =

I believe the evidence supports the notion that Gateway was all about the SOV and the suburban car + real estate lobby from Day One. I don’t see Gateway discouraging SOVs in any way.

Trucking and port activity do not justify the Trans Canada modifications or a ten-lane Port Mann, even if cheap liquid fuels continue to underpin globalized markets. The latter is no longer an assumption you can take to the bank. Rail transport is as important to port activity as trucking, if not more so.

Bill, the problem is that Gateway highway spending will set the shape development to come in our region for the next 10 or 20 years.

That’s the gambit. 10 years—okay, we can take that hit. 20 years—and all bets may be off.

@ Lewis #71: “More and more I see the split between federal and provincial jurisdiction leaving the municipalities out. Canadian cities need to band together at the national level to solve like problems.”
= = =

Right on.

Where are our federal MP urban advocates? Our National Transit Plan? Our Minstry of Urban Affairs? Our House of Commons committees on energy security (peak oil) in the urban context?

Perhaps the largest 20 Canadian cities should threaten to secede in order to get the Prime Minster’s ttention. A nation cannot survive without its primary economic engines, and the new localized economy must begin in cities.

@MB,

arguably the answer is more importnant at a local level, with land-use planning.

Ms. Bula’s last post about the office renaissance in downtown is a good example of that. Due to clear restrictions on what can and can’t be built in the CBD, we are getting the mxed development that we need. It’s not a quick and easy way to fill governemnt coffers, but it pays off if you are patinet.

With or without gateway, you can think of some examples (glenyon park in bby being car-oriented commercial being a bad example, broadway tech park being skytrain-oriented being a good example).

Which is why the tynehead plan is so egregarious. Gateway’s bad effects can be minimized with proper land-use planning, which tynehead is not. It’s critical to make sure we have transit planned as aggressively so cities can also make wise choices, but some municipalities are also complicit with bad choices.

@ mezz, if I was Prime Minister for 30 days ………………………..

30% hike in property taxes is the Translink recommendation? That is completely insane.

One of these days someone is going to have to take on the Transit union. They are holding the Lower Mainland to ransom; until it’s stopped we citizens will have no control over crazy transit costs.

http://www.civicsurrey.com/2010/10/07/mayors-turn-down-property-tax-increase-for-translink/

OK; thanks for pointing that out in #79.