Surrey Rapid Transit Study Stakeholders Workshop - Part Two

Last night, I had the chance to attend the second stakeholder workshop for TransLink’s Surrey Rapid Transit Study. The following graph shows the study area, you can also read about the study on TransLink’s website and about the first workshop on this blog. TransLink's goal for the study area is to reduce vehicle usage to 50% of all trips by 2040 (currently is it at 84% ).


We participated in three exercises. First, we put green dots on places people want to go on a table-sized map of the South Fraser. These included places like post-secondary schools, hospitals, immigrate services, malls, and town centres. Next, we looked at places of opportunity; places where transit can improve the urban environment. Fleetwood and connecting to 200th Street and Aldergrove got the blue opportunity dot. Finally, we looked at no-go places for rapid transit. This included putting transit through environmentally sensitive areas and putting rapid transit stops in the agricultural land reserve.


The second exercise looked at how TransLink’s goals for the study matched up with our objectives. The big take away from that exercise was that their goals needs to more clearly articulate the objectives of financial cost effectiveness, economic development, and deliverability.


The final exercise looked at how we could engage the community for the public workshops in the fall. This included everything from online web forums, transit evangelist, ethnic media, and newspapers to giving away free food for seniors. TransLink will now compile all the information from the stakeholder workshops, develop technology alternatives, and put lines on a map of possible routes for the fall workshops.