Ellen Woodsworth » Putting more buses on the streets and providing affordable transit for all:

Ellen Woodsworth Link

• Advocate for ongoing sustainable investment in transit infrastructure on an annual basis.
• Call for an immediate increase in the number of buses on Vancouver streets.
• Demand that TransLink create a fare review process that includes an advisory panel of users groups, community organizations, transit operators and other stakeholders in determining fare rates.
• Work with TransLink to implement a student U-pass system for all Metro Vancouver post secondary students similar to that currently in place for students at UBC and SFU.
• Establish an official Free Bus loop that links downtown with the Broadway Corridor between Main St and Burrard St.
• Demand that the Province amend its legislation to create a TransLink Board that is directly elected by the people of the member municipalities of Metro Vancouver.
• Oppose the Gateway Plan – a $10 Billion plan which will flood the city with more pollution and more cars counter to the City’s transportation plans and opposed by the cities of Vancouver, Burnaby, New Westminster, North Vancouver, and Richmond.
• Make funding bikeways and cycling a priority in the next Capital Plan.
• Promote the creation of a public bicycle rental system, initially in the Downtown Business District and Broadway Corridor.
• Improve bike safety and access by measures such as giving right of way priorities to bikes on bikeways, erecting prominant signs indicating bike routes, and separating cars form bikes on neighbourhood bike routes.
• Support the expansion of cycling education and awareness programs at schools throughout the city. All children should be offered courses in safe cycling.
• Provide a system of secure storage, lockers, retail concessions and other cyclist oriented amenities at SkyTrain stations, bus loops and transit hubs.
• Split one of the six traffic lanes on Burrard Bridge to make room for a bike lane alongside each sidewalk, put in reversible light signals and give three lanes to rush-hour traffic.
• Work with local communities to create city-wide Car Free Zones and Car Free Days

For background details and to make recommendations please look at www.cope.bc.ca Draft Policy

Killing Our Cities « Price Tags

Killing Our Cities « Price Tags: "In fact, for many people, cars have become less a desirable commodity, and more of a burden. For people who are dependent on their cars, it can become very hard to keep control of the budget when fuel prices are so unpredictable. Many of these people don’t have the option of moving closer to the city. High real estate prices and poor public transport mean the only option is outer suburbs and long, car-bound commutes.

The future for these people isn’t promising. The outer suburbs will become places where only the poor will live. Opponents of development, such as Save our Suburbs, have campaigned against inner-city densification on the grounds it will create ghettos, but the real ghettos are going to be on the urban fringes."

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