The Vancouver Scrum

On the move!

Agh! You’re still here? My new site and weblog, ianking.ca is now up and running; new posts are building up over there, never to be mirrored here. Go! What are you waiting for? All the stuff worth keeping has been migrated over to the new server, and I don’t anticipate making any more posts here.

Bloggers and webmasters: Update your links! Simply replace vancouverscrum.blogspot.com with www.ianking.ca in your blogrolls or bookmarks to point to the new site. Old posts will remain on this server for as long as the people at Blogger/Google allow them to remain; unfortunately, I’m not going to bother to come up with any way of converting permalinks on this blog to their corresponding posts on the new site. Yes, I plead laziness. I also realize the irony of switching away from Blogger just it starts to add features that the demanding blog nerds insist upon.

Thanks for reading and linking, and see you over at ianking.ca!

—Ian King, December 13, 2004

Wednesday, May 21, 2003

 
Good news for cyclists: They'll finally be able to take their bikes on Vancouver's SkyTrain rapid transit system. Provincial regulations had banned bicycles from being transported in the cars since the system was opened in early 1986. In the last 10 years, local transit authorities (first BC Transit and since 1999, TransLink) had made major moves to make "bike and ride" a viable option -- first by putting bike racks on buses that operated through the George Massey Tunnel, then by adding bike racks to most buses delivered since 1998. With SkyTrain, all public transit modes in Vancouver will now carry bikes for those that want to leave part of their trip to something other than pedal power.

In a related story (by the same reporter), the local Chamber of Commerce -- never fans of public transportation -- have raised their own doubts about the proposed Richmond-Airport-Vancouver rapid transit project, citing a lack of a long-range regional transportation plan.

The CoC prefers that money be sunk into more road-building, including the proposed South Fraser Perimeter Road to connect the Port Kells industrial area in Surrey and a new Fraser River crossing with the River Road industries in Delta. TransLink, the regional transportation authority in Greater Vancouver, favours both -- rapid transit to move people, and the South Fraser road for goods and industry. That's no mean feat, considering that politicians biased towards automobile-centred development are currently the majority on the 15-person TransLink board of directors.

Someone should remind the Chamber that there was a regional plan. TransLink unveiled a transportation strategy 1999. The plan called for road projects to clear up bottlenecks and improve goods movement throughout the region, and also expansion of both rapid transit and express bus service in order to make transit a viable option for more consumers. The NDP provincial government effectively killed the plan in 2000 when they nixed a proposed regional vehicle levy ($40-$120 depending on vehicle weight) that would have paid for the planned improvements. It was an attempt to win a few votes in the upcoming provincial election. Fat lot of good that did them -- they would have been crushed in 2001, vehicle levy or not.

I'll have more to say on this when I get back home later today.
posted at 07:14 — new improved comments — 0 so far
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