of West Coast ship;

_ ‘ignore.

Transportation vision on the ri

EX-SASKATCHEWAN
NDP MLA David Lange
is talking a mile a
minute.

He’s got tlip charts,
overlays, numbers, nervous
energy to burn. He’s also got
a grand vision of how to move
the North Shore and the rest
of the Lower Mainland effi-
ciently into the 21st century.

His fellow visionaries
include West Vancouver-
Sunshine Coast Reform MP
John Reynolds and world
renown architect Arthur
Erickson.

The vision involves growth
and tation. Gh, and
risk and roadblocks and every
conceivable complication
known to modern man.

But vision is like that. Not
for the myopic; nor for the
small of mind. Taken piece-
nical a lot of factions will find
much to fault ia it, But from
30,000 fect up it is something
to behold.

The Coles Notes version:
Lange is.a West Vancouver res-
. ident; but he is a Praiic boy at
heart. Knows about wheat and
potash. Has a thing for trans-
portation: Knows how getting
the Prairie goods to port
“works. Knows how it doesn’t
~ work.

Knows that the port of
Vanecutver is a robust opera-'
_ tion working at pretty good
“! efficiency. But ako knows that
room for growth — real
growth —-. and torquing up
that efficiency is, as they say on
the street, close to being
maxed out.
_ . Sees awo other deep-sea
ports close by— Squamish and
+ Roberts Bank — that could
. take-up the siack; that, com-
* bifed with Vancouver, could
" provide a triple-headed model
ing effi-
ciency that would | hard for
" fariners and other producers to

‘Knows — along with
olds and Erickson — that
$nor a job for govern-
nt alone. It needs the “can-

do” vitality of private enter-
prise.

There is also the convolut-
ed matter of urban transporta-
tion, Lower Mainland gridlock
and where to put the 10 mil-
lion people Erickson estimates
will be living in the Vancouver
area by 2026.

No smail matters. Not for
the miniature of mind.

Driven by the nvin engines
of freight and real estate, the
vision involves all of the above.

It starts with nvo major rail
bridges — one linking CP and
CN lines across the Fraser
River between Coquitlam and
Surrey; the other linking BC
Rail lines with CP and CN
lines via Ioco and Deep Cove.

Tt continues with a 65-km
(40-mile) rail and toll road
corridor running along the
cast.side of Indian Arm, up
Indian River and down the
Stawamus River to Squarnish
that will open up the B.C.
heartland to more efficient,
competitive rail service.

Along the way it includes a
tunnel under Burrard Inler
that roughly links Gore Street
on the Vancouver side with
Pemberton Avenue on the
North Shore side. The tunnel
is based on engineer H. Leslie
Smith's 1993 Burrard Inler
crossing propusal.

The plan would dramatical-
ly expand the mandate of BC
‘Transit. Lange estimates rider-
ship would quadruple from
122 million to 506 million rid-
ers per year. And it would
open up a whole new revenue
stream for BC Rail.

It wouid also harness al!
existing rail lines and rail
rights-of-way in the Lower
Mainland for rapid transit. No

need to drive new, obscenely
expensive LRT lines through
cuisting neighborhoods.

At every step of the way
think multimodal — the com-
bination of rail, rapid transit,
freight and highway. The
transportation corndor along
Indian Arm would be multi-
mode2!, as would the Burrard
Inlet tunnel.

Consider the vision: a per-
son could ride rapid transit
from Vancouver airport to
Whistler and vice versa.

‘The agreement to open up
the province to competitive
rail service with efficient
rail/transit access to all three
area deep-sea ports would be
swapped for transit access to all
Lower Mainland rail lines.

The 200,000 BC Rail
freight cars that pass through
West Vancouver each ycar
could be diverted to the safer,
more efficient Indian Arm

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rail /transit route.

BC Rail’s Howe Sound line
could then be used for a
rail /transit link that would run
from Whistler to the North
Shore and into Vancouver.

It would use existing North
Shore waterfront tracks and
the Second Narrows train
bridge, a common sense idea
that has been promoted in this
Newspaper many times.

The overall Lange-
Reynolds-Erickson plan would
create an estimated 6,000
man-vears of employment.

It would draw population
to new communities outside
the Lower Mainland area.

Eventually it could draw
heavy waterfront industry
away from the North Shere to
Squamish and Roberts Bank,
leaving prime North Share
waterfront areas available for
residential development.

It could provide the miss-

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ing transportation link to help
secure the Vancouver/Whistler
bid for the 2010 Olympics.

The public/private parter-
ship model proposed could
have significant financial spin-
offs for partners on both sides
of the tracks.

ft could provide a major
business opportunity for the
North Shore’s Burrard Band,
which is a partner with the
provincial government in the
new Indian Arm park.

Of course, it is not all a day
at the beach. Though the new

nt track

transportation corridor doesn’t
run through any watersheds,
there remain tremendous envi-
ronmental challenges and
assorted logistical roadblocks
sure to be erected by govern-
ment and others.

There is the monumental
issue of cost: $4 billion for the
plan’s first nwo phases. There
are multi-layers of government »
and other jurisdictions tobe +
Negotiated.

But the furure is now for
Vancouver. You just need the
vision to see it. 4

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