March 24, 2006

Transportation

Industry told to support transit plans

Construction industry has major role to play

DAN O’REILLY

correspondent

The construction industry needs to play a more active role in promoting transportation planning and not just limit itself to bidding on those projects, says the head of Canada’s first and only totally integrated regional transportation authority.

“They (the industry) don’t necessarily see themselves as marketing transportation,” says Pat Jacobsen, chief executive officer of the Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority.

Known as TransLink, it is responsible for a $4 billion road and transit regional capital plan, as well as overseeing delivery of all transit services.

Vancouver-area contractors and road builders were key supporters of that plan.

“The road builders were very good,” says Jacobsen, who was one of a series of keynote speakers at a two-day GTA Transportation Summit, organized by the Strategy Institute.

Under the plan, a combination of property taxes, transit fares, parking site taxes, federal and provincial grants, and public-private partnerships are being used to finance a series of projects over 10 years.

They include eight major road projects; providing 400 more buses; the construction of the six-lane Golden Ears Bridge over the Fraser River; and two new rapid transit lines.

One is a $1.64-billion 19-kilometre, 16-station rapid transit line from downtown Vancouver south to suburban Richmond, with a 1.7-kilometre branch line to the Vancouver International Airport.

A private consortium has a 35-year concession agreement to design, build, partially finance, operate and maintain it.

The driving force behind the authority’s creation was the realization at both the provincial and local levels that a more coordinated approach to transportation planning was crucial, said Jacobsen.

“Municipalities were tired of the province setting priorities and the province saw the opportunity to download services.”

Obtaining approval of the transportation plan, however, was a long complex process that required overcoming regional rivalries, competing interests and British Columbia’s often-polarized political scene, she said.

TransLink serves a geographic area three times as large as Toronto, comprised of 21 diverse municipalities ranging from small villages to the City of Vancouver.

It’s also an area constrained by mountains, the Pacific Ocean and a large land reserve, said Jacobsen.

“We’re both blessed and cursed by geography. We have no room to grow.”

“Vancouver is an example of a (transportation) victory,” said GO Transit managing director Gary McNeil, who was a member of speakers’ panel with Jacobsen.

Gary McNeil

During the past few years GO has increased its train service from 139 to 180 trains a day, offering fast efficient bus rides along Highway 407 and introducing innovative concepts, such as smart card electronic fare collection system, said McNeil.

“Without GO, the GTA would require 48 more express lanes of traffic. Our performance has been quite spectacular.”

Like its western counterpart, however, the GTA faces major challenges and obstacles, such as consistent senior government support for transportation, he said.

“There’s so much opportunity for transportation in the GTA.

“It’s not a question of funding, but the political will to provide that funding.”

McNeil expressed annoyance with the failure of regional municipalities to encourage commercial development near its stations as part a long-term strategy to attract “reverse commuters.”

These are people who live in downtown Toronto and work in the suburbs.

While suburban residents are major users of GO because they can drive to a bus or train station, that doesn’t hold true for downtown residents.

The reason is that it is difficult for them to get from the station to their place of employment, he said.

In a short interview after the conference, McNeil also endorsed Jacobsen’s comments about a more proactive construction industry role in transportation planning.

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