Gateway in the News

There happened to be a copy of the Vancouver Courier in the lobby of my work today. Headline: Roads to nowhere - Opposition to the provincial government's Gateway Project is heating up. But it may be too late.

"The real irony is that right next door Vancouver is being held up as a model of high density for the world to follow," says Perl. "The Fraser Valley really needs to replicate that model. Building Gateway will lock in sprawl for at least another 20 years. These new roads will be obsolete by the time they are built. It's very expensive and totally wasteful to spend so much money on such a quick fix. What we need is more rapid transit that attracts high-density development."

Electric buses and trolleys provide the most potential to move people around, says Perl, in particular the old Interurban tracks of the B.C. Electric Railway that ran from Chilliwack to Vancouver. It's a huge hidden asset, says Perl, and will provide zero emissions at the same time as attracting new development along the line. When the old Interurban shut down in the 1958 due to a lack of passengers (many people had switched their commute to cars), the 40-year-old system still carried nearly 70,000 people.

This is a feature length report; check out the Courier’s website for the full story.