Recently I went to the first TransLink open house on their proposal to spend $150 to $175 million dollars on a freeway overpass in New Westminster. The intention is that this overpass will become part of the North Fraser Perimeter Road (NFPR) freeway through New Westminster, which is part of the Gateway freeway megaproject.

The C3 bus to the open house was eleven minutes late, which is apparently typical for this route. I was told by one C3 rider that it is impossible for the drivers to keep on schedule and they even have to skip parts of the route to save time.

This example of poor transit service is one of the results of TransLink not having a clear mandate to increase transit ridership, and reduce automobile dependency. Instead, when TransLink was created by the NDP provincial government in 1998 it was given the mandate to balance roads and transit investments, not a clear directive to put transit first.

The TransLink staff at the open house were at a loss to explain what this project is meant to achieve. It seems like this project is being driven by Gordon Campbell's TransLink board, and has little support from TransLink staff. After a while I had to ask who I could talk to who really thought that the project was a good idea. Then I got the spin that the NFPR freeway is about moving trucks. When I asked about what the same amount of money would achieve if invested in short sea shipping (which is like transit for goods movement with one tug and barge carrying as many containers as 100 trucks), the story was that it might be a good idea but it is not TransLink's job to find efficient ways of moving goods.

Thanks to the organizing efforts of New West Environmental Partners and others, hundreds of New Westminster residents flooded TransLink's open house, along with a few like me from around the region. People's dissatisfaction with the idea of our transit agency bulldozing homes for a freeway was very strong. The 'open house' format with very limited opportunity for members of the public to speak out also attracted a lot of criticism, and before the evening was over TransLink staff announced that a town hall-style meeting would be held in New Westminster. That meeting, which they promised would include a chance for members of the public to speak to the whole audience, is now scheduled for Tuesday December 7, 2010 - 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the Justice Institute of British Columbia, at 715 McBride Boulevard New Westminster. (If you plan to get there on the C3 bus allow extra time - it will probably be late.)

TransLink's road building division may have missed the irony, but Tuesday December 7 is the Global Day of Action for Climate Justice, timed to coincide with the UN talks on global warming in Cancun, Mexico. This day of action is an initiative of Via Campesina, the global organization of small family farm owners and farm workers, who have called for creating '1000 Cancuns' around the globe to support the Mexican farmers who will be in Cancun calling for real action on global warming. On the same evening the first Metro Vancouver People's Assembly on Climate Justice will be held at SFU Harbour Centre, with the aim of building a broad Climate Justice movement in the Lower Mainland.

Considering that the official Cancun negotiations are expected to be a fiasco, perhaps it is fitting that TransLink's road builders have chosen this day to promote the Gateway freeway fiasco. The Gateway freeways are one of the greatest threats to farmland in the Lower Mainland, and roadway expansion is one of the main drivers of increasing greenhouse gas emissions in BC and globally. While governments talk about cutting carbon emissions and confronting the climate crisis, the reality is that they are spending our money to increase emissions and the consumption of Alberta Tar Sands oil.

TransLink was never given the mandate needed to turn around our transportation system to deal with the twin challenges of global warming and peak oil. Instead, it was intended to improve the delivery of the same old 'balanced transportation' model that has been common since the freeway revolts of the early 1970s made freeway building controversial. 'Balanced transportation' usually means expanding roadways and promising to improve transit at the same time, and is often used to greenwash urban freeway building. For example, in 2008 former BC Transportation Minister Falcon justified the Gateway freeway expansion megaproject by claiming "transit alone is not the solution... ensuring that we have a balanced approach to improving transportation infrastructure will take us into the future in a manner that is environmentally and economically sustainable."¹

The fact is that building transit and freeways at the same time increases overall travel by automobile; and greenhouse gas emissions and oil consumption increase along with automobile travel.

Continuing with the 'balanced transportation' approach of the last four decades is not any kind of solution. TransLink needs a clear mandate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and oil dependence by focusing on transit improvements.

If you can't make it out to TransLink's meeting on Tuesday, they have a feedback form where you can let them know that you want better transit not freeways. If you live in New Westminster, contacting City Council is the best way to stop the NFPR freeway - they can veto the whole project.

1 www.gov.bc.ca/fortherecord/investments/tran_oe_gateway_june_4_final.pdf