District of North Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»councillors are concerned Maplewood is getting left in the slow lane while bus service accelerates elsewhere on the North Shore.
TransLink’s plans include increasing B-line bus service between 24th Street in West Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»and Phibbs Exchange in a bid to speed up what is currently – at an average of 16 kilometres per hour – the second slowest transit route on the North Shore. However, bringing that B-line to Maplewood is “currently not in TransLink’s service plan,” noted a district staff report.
Maplewood is earmarked as a town centre consisting of 1,500 condominium and townhouse units amid light-industrial land between Dollarton Highway and Mt. Seymour Parkway east of Maplewood Farm and west of Windridge Park. However, uncertainty around transit may cause the district to rethink Maplewood plans, said Coun. Doug MacKay-Dunn. “We’re going to have to, in my humble opinion, re-examine our commitment to development in that area.”
Without B-line service, the regular gridlock may become “such a burden to the community that they will demand we don’t move forward with any more density,” MacKay-Dunn added.
nudge the Maplewood project forward in February, amending their official community plan and adding new land use designations to the area. Coun. Jim Hanson cast the dissenting vote.
During the debate, Mayor Richard Walton suggested a failure to advance Maplewood could hurt the district’s chances of bringing more transit to Seymour.
The onus is on district council to prove the transit demand is in Maplewood as opposed to Dundarave, Walton explained in a March 19 council discussion. “You show me where all the jobs are in Dundarave and I’ll show you where all the jobs are coming in Maplewood,” Walton said.
Transit is allocated based on jobs, density and population, according to TransLink vice-president of planning Geoff Cross. “We’re constantly chasing demand, we’re rarely ahead of it,” he said.
New B-line service is slated to run every eight minutes during rush hour but Coun. Lisa Muri wondered how those extra buses would navigate the morass of North Shore traffic. “I’m just not sure how you’re going to get through (Marine Drive corridor) when we’re all stuck in cars,” she said. In questioning Cross, Muri emphasized the “horrific” traffic on Mount Seymour Road exacerbated by buses stopping and traffic backing up into intersections.
The new B-line will address that somewhat by running every eight minutes in rush hour while making fewer stops, Cross said, explaining the B-line will load and unload at approximately one-kilometre intervals. The B-line is slated to run every 10 to 15 minutes the rest of the time.
There are no immediate plans for a bus-only lane on the route or for curbside pull-outs that would allow the bus to pull out of traffic when dropping off or picking up. “It takes more time for a bus to pull out and then get back into traffic,” Cross said.
Given that per-kilometre costs of SkyTrain are more than $100-million, B-line bus service represents “low-hanging fruit,” according to Walton.
Coun. Roger Bassam agreed, suggesting the community likely doesn’t have “the appetite” for the type of growth that would necessitate a SkyTrain.
Other transit changes include bringing light rail to Surrey, extending the Millennium Line from VCC-Clark to Broadway and an eight per cent overall increase in bus service. To pay for those changes, transit fares are slated to tick up between five and 15 per cent. Property taxes are also slated to go up by a regional average of $5.50 in 2019, according to TransLink. Developers will also be on the hook for an extra $300 to $600 per unit on new residential developments.
