One mile of the Seattle Viaduct came down in nine days last October, without the chaos drivers always anticipate on such occasions. Latest updates from Seattle show the city is moving ahead with new traffic patterns to clear the way for the tunnel, which will ensure good connections remain to the port and other arterials.

But city after city is putting a freeway on death row.

The Seattle project is just one of a wave of removals right across America, homeland of the car. According to this update in Atlantic Cities, the battle is moving to the neighbourhood level, where more and more communities are debating the shape of their future. If a freeway can come down, why not an overpass? Well, in fact, it can.

The pilot program  was an election commitment by Mayor Gregor Robertson, who was responding to a long-standing call for such action from taxi owners, who point out that similar rules are in place all over the world.

Here in Vancouver, however, riders would sit fuming in traffic while the bus lane next to them sat empty. Robertson secured a green light from provincial transport minister Blair Lekstrom and Translink is on board.

With more than 700,000 taxi trips a year in Vancouver, the impact could be significant. Where congestion is heavy, particularly downtown, taxis will be able to move into bus lanes, reducing travel times and trip costs.

But it’s a two cents a litre lift in fuel tax which is the key to funding transit expansion, including construction of the Evergreen Line. Will fuel tax deliver the cash, or will drivers shift to cheaper and greener alternatives — like moving downtown — that don’t produce tax revenues to build transit?

Victoria transit analyst Todd Littman argues that assumptions about fuel tax, tolls and the like  need to be challenged. As incomes stagnate and demographics shift, small increases in fuel tax can produce larger shifts in consumption.

So a new tax may be very effective in reducing congestion, he argues, but not produce sufficient income to fund new roads . . . or transit.

The new policy will cut 20 to 30 minutes from the trip to Seattle. Trains now sit at a siding in Blaine for at least this long while US customs officials do their duty.

Seattle’s Bruce Agnew, of the Cascadia Institute, hailed the agreement in a briefing note to many of the political and transportation leaders who have worked to build the Cascades service on both sides of the border. The Beyond the Border gains follow on the heels of Ottawa’s decision to waive customs inspection fees on the Seattle train that were putting the entire service in jeopardy.

Agnew noted that the agreement specifically provided that both sides “will conduct full pre-clearance of travelers and accompanying goods at Vancouver, BC, for passenger rail and cruise ship traffic destined to the United States. Negotiations to this end will be completed by the end of 2012.”

The Cascades gains are a rare bright light on the US rail scene. Just a few years after Barack Obama promised major investments in high speed rail to boost the economy, the rail modernization program is stalled by budget cuts and partisan wrangling.

Work is continuing at the city to integrate the contest proposals with in-house work that will inform public consultation on a new transportation, scheduled for release in the spring.

Now it’s the public’s turn to vote on their favourite proposal — including the “do nothing” option — before the city unveils the winners picked by a panel of eminent judges. The “people’s choice” award and the judges’ verdict will be revealed Dec. 1.

Although 60 percent of the competitors are local and 75 percent from Metro Vancouver, others weighed from as far afield as Hong Kong, Mexico and Slovenia.

According to planning director Brent Toderian, “submissions range from the beautification of the viaducts, to their re-use as open space or other uses, or their partial or complete removal and replacement.

“The visions range from the practical and pragmatic, to the futuristic and whimsical. Submitters appeared to be inspired by everything from water and nature, to our urban past and current housing challenges, to volcanoes, horses, corn-dogs, and knitting yarn!”

Remember, voting closes in one week: please cast your ballot and invite your friends to do the same.

Saving six minutes each way on a daily commute may not sound like much, but it adds up to an hour a week or four hours a month to be spent as you wish, but probably relaxing with your family. Is this so bad?

Yes, the cost of the infrastructure may be $1 billion more. To many, however, the benefit would be priceless. This social gain is not factored into transit purchase decisions.

Now a new study shows that “inequality of well-being” is even more badly distributed than income. Basically, the study examines how much time and money families have at various places on the economic scale.

No matter how hard young families work, their incomes are stagnating and their personal time is declining. Not so for those at the top of the scale, who have both more money and more time.

Vision Vancouver’s transit platform, soon to be released, will continue the push for rapid transit along the Broadway Corridor. Skytrain all the way to UBC? Maybe not all the way and certainly not immediately, but for most riders, the demand is “get me there as fast as you can.” This study shows why.

Faster transit — it’s better for the planet, better all ’round.

Wasn’t there an extra zero there?

No. In China, where community consultation is an empty category and money is plentiful, things move quickly.

The lines were done by 2010 and Guangzhou keeps on building. Here in Metro, meanwhile, we’ve finally just greenlighted another 11 kilometres on the Evergreen Line, which won’t roll for another four years at the earliest.

I was staffing Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell on a tour of Guangzhou’s gleaming  German-built underground system. Vancouver’s sister city was vaulting, along with the rest of the country, from a city of bicycles in the 1980s to an automobile gridlock zone in the 1990s and then a rapid transit city 10 years later.

In 2005, Vancouver had just ground out the decision to complete the Canada Line, a fractious regional debate that itself took many years. Still to come: a decision on new funding sources for Translink, without which some rrapid transit relief for riders on the Broadway Corridor is impossible.

That’s where a joint technical committee of seni0r provincial, municipal and Translink bureaucrats are working on proposals for alternate funding sources that will take further property tax increases off the table.

If they can’t find a solution acceptable to all by early next year, property taxes will rise in 2013 once more to pay for transit. This is precisely the scenario predicted by Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan and Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie, both former Translink chairs, who Friday voted against the new funding formula for precisely this reason.

(Note to drivers: fares have already been raised the legal maximum and are scheduled to rise another 13 percent in 2013, meaning riders will still pay the largest share of the overhead.)

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson has proposed an increase in the carbon tax on a regional basis to pay for transit.

Surrey Mayor Diane Watts added two more suggestions to the debate on Friday: an “area benefitting tax” that affects properties seeing values rise due to transit investment, and a regional bridge tolling scheme that would put crossings like Lions Gate Bridge and Ironworkers Bridge on an equal footing with tolled crossings like Port Mann and Golden Ears.

Most agree the final package could include “all of the above,” but achieving agreement will not be easy.

That key vote is Friday.

Here’s the full text of the release: 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 3, 2011

Transit unions urge Metro Vancouver Mayor’s Council to support Supplemental TransLink budget to fund Evergreen Line, expand bus, Seabus and SkyTrain services as first step to sustainable funding
 
VANCOUVER – The unions representing all TransLink workers in Metro Vancouver are urging the Mayor’s Council to support passage of the “Moving Forward” Supplemental Budget to fund the Evergreen Line and expansion of bus, SeaBus and SkyTrain service.

The Joint Union Council says the budget – if passed on Friday October 7 – will allow the Evergreen Rapid Transit Line connecting Coquitlam and Port Moody to the regional rail rapid transit system to proceed and add 415,000 service hours to bus and SeaBus service by 2014 – a 7% increase.

Don MacLeod, president of the Canadian Auto Workers Local 111 representing bus drivers, said the while the Supplemental Budget will not come close to solving all of TransLink’s ongoing financial challenges in providing adequate transit services, it is an important step forward.

“The unions at TransLink believe that transit services will never meet the needs of Metro Vancouver until we reach a sustainable funding model to provide improved bus, SeaBus, SkyTrain and other needed public transportation,” MacLeod said.  “But this Supplemental Budget is a small but necessary step forward to a better transit system and we support it.”

MacLeod said in addition to the Evergreen Line and 415,000 additional service hours for bus and SeaBus by 2014, the Supplemental Budget will also fund a new B-Line service in Surrey on 104th Avenue and King George Boulevard connecting Guildford, Surrey Central and White Rock, local service connecting White Rock and Langley, Rapid Bus service on Highway 1 and the new Port Mann Bridge, as well as SeaBus and SkyTrain station renovations.

“These improvements are urgently needed by our riders, who deserve a better public transit system that serves their needs,” said JUC representative Kevin Payne of the Canadian Office and Professional Employees union local 378.  “We hope the Mayor’s Council passes this Supplemental Budget and then moves on to work with the provincial government to find the sustainable funding we desperately need.”

The Joint Union Committee is comprised of CAW locals 111 & 2200, COPE 378, Canadian Union of Public Employees [CUPE] locals 7000 & 4500, Amalgamated Transit Union locals134 & 1724 and the BC Government and Service Employees Union [BCGEU].

For more information:  Don MacLeod at 604-519-1110 ext *2288 or cell (604) 992-1781 or Kevin Payne at 604-220-7431 cell or Bill Tieleman, West Star Communications, at cell 778-896-0964 or 604-844-7827