City of Surrey survey misleads stakeholders on Bus Rapid Transit

MEDIA RELEASE October 9, 2015・Surrey, BC

The City of Surrey is misleading stakeholders about LRT and rapid transit in a CitySpeaks citizen survey released this morning.

The survey, conducted by the city in conjunction with consultant Steer Davies-Gleave, asks survey participants to compare express buses and LRT based on a subset of pre-selected criteria. The criteria suggest that an Express Bus cannot support LRT features like all-door boarding or real-time information, which is misleading.

Bus Rapid Transit supports all of the same features as LRT – including multi-door boarding, real-time arrival displays, lighted stations, and traffic-signal priority. These can be added as upgrades to the existing 96 B-Line at a much lower cost, at a gradual pace and with fewer construction inconveniences.

Other bus routes in Metro Vancouver, such as the #3 Main (real-time arrival displays) and #99 B-Line (all-door boarding) are already employing these features.

Bus Rapid Transit can also make use of hybrid diesel-electric buses or be electrified (i.e. trolley buses) to offer smooth, quiet rides like LRT. Many modern, hybrid articulated buses are already in service in Metro Vancouver, operating out of the Richmond bus depot on routes such as the #403, #480 and #49.

Attempts to mislead transit commuters and stakeholders about this are precisely why residents need to get together now and reject the proposed Surrey LRT.

Daryl Dela Cruz

SkyTrain for Surrey — Founder

Criteria screen-shot from CitySpeaks/Steer Davies-Gleave LRT survey. Express Buses are given specific criteria and it is not made clear that modern Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) can support all features of LRT, even electrification.

About SkyTrain for Surrey

SkyTrain for Surrey is the community organization that advocated for the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension (SLS). From our beginnings as a petition calling for the scrapping of a street-level LRT proposal, we grew into a community of like-minded folk, taking on various projects such as making SkyTrain an election issue in 2018 as a registered advocacy group. Today we are pushing for the construction of the SLS as well as the King George SkyTrain extension (KGS).

Media Contact:

Daryl Dela Cruz – Founder, SkyTrain for Surrey
Phone: +1 604 329 3529, [email protected]

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