Brian Lewis: Dismissing light rail in Valley short-sighted

The Province's Brian Lewis wrote a great article about a background paper called “Developing a Transportation Vision for the FVRD.” I previously blogged about some serious questions about the quality of this draft paper. Brian Lewis had similar concerns: "Since a proper analysis hasn't been done, I'd say the authors of this report have won a gold medal in jumping to conclusions." He then goes on to comment about the excuses in a Township of Langley staff report on the public transit and reviving the Interurban.

They've just filed a report with the township's council that recommends Langley do nothing about the proposed inter-urban light-rail proposal, which would see the old right-of-way upgraded for community rail linking Surrey, Langley, Abbotsford and ultimately Chilliwack.

It says Langley should wait and see if Surrey's proposed tourist/heritage light-rail service between Newton and Cloverdale on the inter-urban succeeds or not.

Surrey hopes to have that service ready for the 2010 Olympics and will use it as a test-run for eventual full light-rail service.

In fact, this report goes out of its way to derail the entire light-rail concept to the point where I feel it loses any value as a useful document.

And that's why the township's council is holding a special meeting tomorrow to re-examine its staff's report.

Please read the whole article on the Province's website.

PS: South Fraser OnTrax (that's us) tipped Brian off to the Township of Langley staff report...