Somethings Never Change: Planning for Rapid Transit in the 1970's

I was browsing around the Internet last night and I stumbled upon the following picture:

Rapid Transit Project Public Meeting Ad. Click Image to Enlarge. Picture from rickie22.

I could only laugh otherwise I might have cried because it was a public consultation notice from the 1970’s asking people for input on where rapid transit should be built. What is a bit sad is that we are still having the same conversation about the same corridors some 30+ years later.

Some observations about the public consultation notice. First, it’s interesting that the picture of rapid transit is a low-floor light rail vehicle integrated into the community. This is something that our current SkyTrain system lacks. Also, it looks like there wasn’t really a plan for the current Millennium Line SkyTrain alignment and that the Evergreen Line alignment was supposed to be a priority corridor. Missing from this picture is rapid transit to UBC, but it does include an alignment down King George Boulevard. Seeing that rapid transit to the depths of Surrey has been on the books since before my birth, I can only hope that the next rapid transit project will be in the South of Fraser once the Evergreen Line is built.