Can Surrey transit promises be kept?

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SURREY (NEWS1130) – The promises have been made in Surrey. But can they be kept?

The city’s new mayor has committed to getting light rail funded, planned, built and operational south of the Fraser by 2018, and Linda Hepner says she plans on keeping that commitment.

It is a very tight timeline, even more so when you factor in the potential need to strike up a public-private partnership. Hepner says she’ll go that route if revenue plans are rejected in the transit referendum and TransLink can’t be convinced to hop on board.

SFU transportation expert Gordon Price believes it may be possible, but the 2018 deadline may not be that important.

“It would be dependent, of course, that there’s provincial and federal support. If Dianne Watts (the former mayor, transitioning to federal politics) is in the right position and the votes are attractive to the provincial [and federal] government, it might be possible to strike a deal. But I think Surrey’s dilemma is whether or not it really wants to be separate from the region, both in terms of how their option would be funded and how it would be connected to a regional transit system,” he says.

“It’s always a little dangerous for a politician to put a date on something, but I think the public is concerned that there would be momentum, that they actually see that this going to be real. Whether it happens exactly on one date or another is less important than there being a shovel in the ground, that there be a commitment to move forward. And that assumes you’ve worked through all the politics of it — that’s, I think, more problematic than meeting a technical deadline.”

Hepner has talked about a $2-billion system, starting with a 10-kilometre line connecting Surrey’s downtown core with Guildford and Newton. The second phase would be a 17-kilometre line to Langley.

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