Surrey’s mayor has rejected a $ 2-billion SkyTrain expansion and called again on TransLink to create a light-rail system south of the Fraser River.
In her annual state-of-the-city address Tuesday, Watts told a packed room of business representatives that the proposed regional transit options are either too expensive or too polluting.
Watts said light-rail transit would better help connect the neighbourhoods of the province’s fastest-growing city.
“Light rail is cost-effective, it’s efficient and it shapes and affects communities,” Watts said. “It will also increase economic development along those corridors.”
Watts’ proposed LRT would run along three key corridors — 104 Avenue, Fraser Highway to Langley, and King George Boulevard — and cost less than a SkyTrain extension.
TransLink is in the drafting stages of an LRT option for Surrey, and Watts hopes to receive public input on the proposal.
“We want to get some comments and feedback, because the people who live in the community should have some say in the decision-making process.”
Watts also called for a more equitable tolling system, claiming bridge tolls should be, at most, 75 cents to a dollar, and that the province should collect revenue by tolling other expensive regional projects.
“The Sea to Sky Highway — significant money went into the upgrades of that — that’s not tolled. There’s people around the region, including myself, that think it should have been,” she said.
Watts hopes the newly established Office of the Auditor General for Local Government will examine the downloading of costs from other levels of government onto cities, which currently receive eight cents for every tax dollar collected in Canada.
Surrey has been aggressively expanding under the Build Surrey program as its population grows. It is estimated to reach 750,000 people by 2040.
Local news from metronews.ca/vancouver
About The Reporter
