Surrey - The Editor, Re: "The congestion question," the Now, March 12.
Gordon Price's arguments in favour of a "Yes" vote are really misleading and oddly, a vote of no confidence in the mayors' council.Price says that if there is a "No" vote, "We fall back to building more roads, more bridges, which we will not have a vote for."Really? Does Price mean that the Mayors' Council will suddenly stop advocating for transit and build roads and bridges only, and that the region will suffer - as Price puts it - a "loss of vision?" That is silly. The issue is not the vision for transit as put forth by the mayors, but the funding to pay for it all. The mayors will not suddenly become exclusively road builders.Speaking of funding, Surrey Mayor Linda Hepner has a Plan B. If the plebiscite fails, the mayor will apply to Ottawa for a share of the $14 billion New Building Canada Fund.Really? If she hasn't applied yet, why not? After all, the mayor wants us, "to understand that this is going to benefit the City of Surrey and the region for the next 100 years."One would have thought the mayor would have been making every effort to find funding for such an important undertaking now, rather than wait for Plan B. Where can the mayors find the needed money? They will need, in part, to put pressure on Victoria.. Create a fair road pricing system (read tolls) for the whole region. Place tolls on all existing regional existing bridges and tunnels, as well as a distancerelated toll on the new, refurbished Highway 1 on both sides of the Port Mann Bridge. Place a per vehicle daily toll limit ($3). Everybody who drives in the region pays a little bit, and every possible dollar goes to the mayors' plan.. Divert some of the carbon tax that we all pay on gas in Metro to the mayors' plan, say about $250 million per year (sound familiar?).. Find somebody like Jimmy Pattison, impartial and effective, to closely examine TransLink and make binding decisions to make that corporation more efficient and less expensive (does it really need so many boards and expensive executives and managers with rich severance packages?).. And yes, Mayor Hepner, get that application into Ottawa ASAP, if you haven't already.Ian KennettSurrey