Bob Mackin
News Reporter binackin@nsnews.com

BILL Bell won’t be at the Pacific
Coliseum this weekend when the
NDP chooses a new leader and pre-
mier.

The North Vancouver city. councillor
worked on successful campaigns to get Bob
Skelly, Mike Harcourt and Glen Clark elected
party leader, Harcourt and Clark became pre-
miers.

Bell admitted that he was embarrassed with
his choice four years age.

“T sure picked the wrong persua in 96!" he
said,

This time he’s not supporting anyone.

“Pye been quite disappointed with the
NDP over the last while. im still a member,
although I question that at times, too. I°m sit-
ting this one ouz. Whoever gets in has alot of
Proving to me and the public and voters of

ow in NDP

Friday, February 18, 2000 - North Shore News - 3

Local NDP faithful muster little enthusiasm

B.C. of who's deserving of any support.”
Bell said none of the tour candidates appeal

to him. He said the main issite is integrity of

feadership, an issue that has cast a shadow over
frontrunner Ujjal Dosanjh’s campaign.
Dasanjh’s workers have been accused by oppo-
nents of a manipulative membership drive ina
bid to win delegate votes.

“Mr. Dosanjh isn’t directly responsible for
some of the concerns over the membership
scandal,” Bell said) *But when vou're in
charge, you have to take some responsibility for
that, So some members are going over to
Corky (Evans) that were originally supporting
Dosanjh over integrity.”

Regardless of the new leader, Bell said it will
require a major turnaround for the party to
return as the Opposition after the next elec-
ton. He is certain, however, that the NDP will
endure.

“Te will never go the same way as Social
Credit, there is a foundation in the New
Democrats that is more of a caring and pro-
gressive ideology than what vou find with
Social Credit. PE don’t think it: will disappear,
but as far as the voters go, if the election was
held tomorrow, it would be disastrous.”

Socal Credit was rocked by a leadership
scandal and vicious internal disputes and has all
but disappeared from the political scene in the
provinee.

Unlike Bell, West Vancouver’s Dennis
MeGann is eager to see Dosanjh win the race
Sunday.

“Ufjal is quite clearly the candidate with the
clear integrity that people are looking for in a
leader right now,” said MeGann, creative direc-
tor at NDP-aligned ad agency NOW
Communications “Secondly, this is much
more personal, Pd like to see for once in this

Dp rate

country us have a premier who is a visible
minority. Tes a very important: svmbol for
voung people to know that they can aspire to
be everything.”

MeGann, originally from Jamaica, will be at
the convention as a delegate by virtue of his
status as an NDP provincial council member.

John Laxton, a West Vancouver lawyer and
longume NDP supporter, expects Dosanjh to
win, Like Bell, Laxton will view the events
trom afar. He said his interest in polities has
diminished “to the point of indifference.”

“f think he will be a good leader and a good
premier,” Laxton said. “He's gota hell ofa job
abead of him to repair the damage, although it
might rake a small miracle, it’s not impossible.
Given the weakness of the opposition. It's
going to be an interesting few months.”

Laxton was chairman of BC Hydro during
Clark's premiership, but left the post amid a
controversy. He was among a BC Hydro-allied
group thar planned to invest in a power project
in Pakistan.

seeks inlet

iternatives

Marcie Good
Contributing Writer

THEY stopped short of saying a definite
“no” to a third crossing for cars over the
Burrard Inlet, but North Vancouver district
councillors want a study on better ways over
the water.

A motion at Monday’s meeting from Coun. Ernie Crist
tried to have council put on record opposition to any third
crossing except a tunnel for rapid transit or light rail.

“Tam afraid that if we do not come out against a third
crossing, that is exactly what we will get,” ke said, in explain-
ing why council should record its opposition to another
bridge or tunnel for single-oceupancy vehicles.

That would not solve the congestion problems, Crist
argued, because once cars gee inte Vancouver there are still
limited traffic lanes.

“We should not fall into the trap of thinking we can have
both,” he said, of car and public transit options. “We have to
fight, and fight for public transportation.”

Other councillors supported public transit options but pre-
ferred not to, in Coun. Janice Harris’ words, “lock themselves
inte 2 box of one councillor’s making.”

When no one supported Crist’s motion, Mayor Don Bell
suggested another: to support a TransLink study reviewing
options and costs for future transportation crossings, includ-
ing the possibility of light rail transit and also the possible
expansion of SeaBus-type service. That met with unanimous
approval,

TransLink has not included a third crossing over the
Burrard Inlet in its current five-year study because the North
Shore is not one of its designated growth areas.

TransLink has determined that, with a smaller population
density and projected growth than areas st ch as Richmond
and New Westminster, the North Shore does not justify the
expense of studying a light rail extension.

Harris, a representative to the North Shore Transportation
Planning Advisory Cominittez, insisted that better ways of
using buses must be expiored before a rapid rail extension is
implemented.

A train over the Burrard Inlet is a “sexy and expensive”
concept that appeals to many, she said, but new technology
and fresh ideas for bus travel make more sense.

“We should look at mini-buses on Seymour,” she said,
describing betcer ways of servicing out-lying areas, “instead of
getting starry-eyed over a third crossing.”

Other ideas, such as an on board global positioning system
that wouid make traffic lights green for buses and B-line bus
routes that make few stops are going to make buses like
“trains on wheels,” she said.

Crist’s motion was prompted in part by a plan for a
Burrard Inlet tunnel, described in a letrer from West
Vancouver Coun. John Clark to the district’s municipal man-
ager last week.

Clark has been advocating a plan called TransVision, a pri-
vately funded tunnel, to alleviate traffic on Marine Drive in
West Vancouver. One of the tunnel’s terminals, he has said,
could be at Pemberton Avenue in North Vancouver.

Several councillors scoffed at the TransVision plan at
Monday’s meeting. Mayor Bell wondered how Clark could
presume to route traffic through North Vancouver without
discussing the plan with anyone from the district.

“Almost as an afterthought,” Bell said, “he writes a letrer
to the municipal manager (not the mayor) to see if anyone
from the district wants to be involved.”

NEWS phote Terry Peters

NORTH Vancouver Mounties and District firefighters evacuated the area near the construction site of the
Holiday Inn on Wednesday near Old Lillooet Road. A backhoe dug up a gas line by mistake. Natural gas

West Van pushes
for N. Shore transit
plan committee

dan-Christian Sorensen
Contributing Writer

WEST Vancouver District coun-
cillors are in agreement —
North Shore municipalities need
to speak with one voice about
TransLink’s proposed strategic
transportation plan if they are
to effect any change in the plan.

In its regular meeting Monday
night, council passed a motion to
approach the other two North Shore
municipalities — North Vancouver city
and district — and Lions Bay Village
and Bowen Island municipality — in the
hopes of forming a committee to better
address North Shore concerns about
the plan.

TransLink has proposed an annual
$75 per vehicle surtax, a $0.25 transit
fare increase in June with another hike
slated for 2003 and a possible increase
in downtown parking rates. The fare

increase is expect to
increase the cost to the
daily transit user from
$100 to $250 per year.

Other points of the
strategic transportation
plan include:
@ improving SeaBus
service at peak hours
and looking at addi-
tional ferry services
from Seymour, Bowen
Island and Deep Cove;
@ improving service
between downtown
Vancouver and the
Horseshoe Bay ferry
terminal;
@ doubling © service
(from every 30 minutes
to every 15 minutes)
during peak hours for
buses travelling across
the Second Narrows Bridge and Lions
Gate Bridge;
@ improving evening, Sunday and holi-
day service to Lynn Canyon Park;
@ improving peak morning and after-
neon traffic between West Vancouver
and UBC.

The plan has been widely met with
opposition on the North Shore, with
about 100 people attending a public

WEST Van Coun. Allan
Williams spoke against
the $75 vehicle levy.

spewed from the ruptured pipe unti! it was repaired by B.C. Ges staff. No one was injured.

preyaet

meeting last week to
express their disdain.
West Vancouver. Coun.
Allan Williams said that
TransLink would be
shooting itself in’ the
foot if such a vehicle
levy were applied.

“The report is predicat-
ed upon the fact that
the private passenger
car is bad and public
transit is good,” he
said. “But they want to
raise all their money _
from the private pas-
senger motor vehicle.
Seventy-five dollars per
car, additional charges
for parking if you have
to be in Vancouver ... it
seems to me that if
they’re successful in
forcing people out of their cars they'll
lose all the revenue base.”

He also questioned how a non-elect-
ed, appointed body such as TransLink
had the authority to make decisions on
behalf of North Shore residents that
didn’t vote for it.

“Pm rather startled that (TransLink)

See Plan's page &