Metro Vancouver's massive investment in water and sewer infrastructure to support our growing region

Because Metro Vancouver is a growing region, core infrastructure needs to be expanded to be able to accommodate that growth. While water and sewer services aren’t headline-grabbing, they are critical to keeping this region functioning, and they require a significant amount of investment.

For example, Metro Vancouver recently completed the $820 million Capilano-Seymour water project to meet our region's increased water demand.

The regional district is working with both the provincial and federal governments to get funding in place to build the $700 million Lions Gate Wastewater Treatment Plant on the North Shore.

Closer to home, around $275 million is being invested in building a new water tunnel under the Fraser River near the Port Mann Bridge to ensure the delivery of safe drinking water to the rapidly growing South of Fraser.

In Langley, work is now beginning to plan for the expansion of the Northwest Langley Wastewater Treatment Plant. A $6.7 million contract will likely be award to CH2M Hill Canada as part of the treatment plant expansion. This also includes a new pump station in Maple Ridge. This is part of a larger $800 million dollar East Fraser Serving and Treatment project to support growth in Langley, Pitt Meadows, and Maple Ridge.

Components of the East Fraser Servicing and Treatment project. Select image to enlarge.

These few projects that I outlined total about $2.5 billion, and are only a sample of the many projects that the Metro Vancouver regional district is working on. While the provincial and federal governments do provide some capital funding for these project, the remainder is funded via property tax.

Water and sewer infrastructure is critical to our region’s livability, and will require a significant amount of investment over the next decade to ensure it can meet the needs of our growing region.

Survey says: Strong support for more free, family-friendly events in Downtown Langley, and a performing art centre in the community

Last week, I asked people to take some time out of their busy schedules to complete a quick survey about investing in the City of Langley and our Downtown Core.

On the ground examples in Langley City and other Canadian city's show that bringing positive activities to an area reduces or eliminates negative activity, uplifts a community, and is more cost effective than increasing policing headcount.

Over the last few days, I’ve compiled the information from the survey, cleaned up the data to make sure that the answers were from people who live in the City of Langley (sorry Brookswood folks.) There were 223 people that responded to the survey with good representation from every neighbourhood in the City.

The first two pie charts show the level of support for more free, family-friendly public events in Downtown Langley, and a performing art centre.

Would you support a performing art centre in Langley City? Select chart to view.

Would you support more free, family-friendly public events in Downtown Langley such a Arts Alive, the Food Truck Festival, Cruise-In, McBurney Summer Series, and a night market?

As you can see, there is virtually 100% support for more events in our Downtown Core, and very strong support for a performing art centre in the City of Langley.

Nothing comes without a cost, so I was also interested in seeing if there was support for the City of Langley to invest additional property tax revenue for these initiatives.

What additional property tax would you be willing to pay to support a performing art centre annually? Select chart to view.

What additional property tax would you be willing to pay to support having more free, family-friendly public events in Downtown Langley annually? Select chart to view.

Again, there is strong support for both investing in a performing art centre and for more events in our Downtown Core.

When I ran for council, two of the things that I committed to do was to advocate to make Downtown Langley a destination, and to work towards building a performing art centre. The results of this survey confirms that these are some of the priorities for people who live in the City as well. I will continue to work on council to do what I can to move forward on these items.

Feds continue support for public transit, and what this means for Metro Vancouver

In September, I posted about TransLink’s 10-year Transportation Vision - Phase 1, and what that meant for the South of Fraser. This is phase 1 of a 3 phase plan which is based on the Mayors’ Council Regional Transportation Investments Vision.

Map of TransLink's 10-Year Vision - Phase 1. Select map to enlarge.

Phase 1 of this plan is being funding in part by $370 million provided by the federal government. The following table shows the full breakdown of funding for Phase 1.

Funding and expenditures for TransLink's 10-Year Vision - Phase 1. Select tables to enlarge.

To implement the full Mayors’ Council Vision will require around $3.9 billion in capital funding over the next decade, and will require the support of all orders of government. The federal government recently announced more details on their 11-year infrastructure plan. In that plan, $25.3 billion is set aside for public transit nationally. If the funding formula is similar to how they allocated public transit funding during this budget cycle, this could mean around $2.7 billion in funding for our region.

The federal government funded 50% of public transit capital cost during the 2016/17 budget cycle, and I don’t expect this to change going forward. What this means is that the federal government is doing its part to funding public transit in our region.

The provincial government has in the past committed to funding 33% of public transit capital costs in the region, this support will need to continue. In addition, the province will need to approve additional on-going funding sources that will generate $100 million annually starting in 2021 to enable the full Mayors’ Council Transportation Investments Vision to come to fruition.

I’m pleased that the federal government is continuing with its plan to make significant investments over the next decade into public transit. With such a large amount of federal funds on the table, I’m hopeful that this will encourage that province and region to come up with a long-term plan for on-going funding to support the Mayors’ Council Vision.

Quantifying the link between transportation, land-use, and health costs

Dr. Larry Frank, who is the Bombardier Chairholder and Professor in Sustainable Transport and the Director of the Health and Community Design Lab at UBC, has been doing extensive research on the link between how we build our communities, and the health outcomes of people who live in those communities.

At a recently Metro Vancouver Regional Planning Committee meeting, Dr Jat Sandhu from Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, Mr. Rob Barrs from MODUS Consulting, and he presented on the Health and Economic Benefits of the Built Environment.

The following graphic shows the link between transportation investments, people’s health, and the cost of providing health services. Auto-oriented communities are more costly to human health than walkable, transit-friend communities.

How transportation and land-use impacts human health and healthcare costs. Select image to enlarge.

For example in San Diego, Dr. Frank found from a 2012 study of 18,000 people that there was a 10% reduction in Type II diabetes risk and 15% reduction in cardiovascular disease risk for people living in a more walkable and transit-friendly environment.

Study's conceptual framework. Select image to enlarge.

Within Metro Vancouver, they will now be looking at the data gathered from the BC Generations Project which includes information from 16,300 residents between the ages of 25-69 in the region to “apply longitudinal techniques to uncover causal relationships between the built environment, health behaviour, and health-related outcomes.”

Hopefully having more local data about the link between land-use and health outcomes will cause both local and provincial governments to plan for and build transportation systems and support land-uses patterns that make people healthier.