Bridges and Skytrain
Posted April 18, 2009 by Sacha Peter - Link
Category: Transportation
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Carole James and the NDP have been spending a lot of time in Burnaby and the Tri-Cities for good reason; a lot of the NDP’s hopes to make a majority government depend on these seats going NDP.
Two major issues in the area deal with the new Port Mann Bridge and the Evergreen Line.
The BC Liberals came out with a release saying that the new Port Mann will be finished a year in advance, December 2012. Conveniently this is before the next provincial election in May 2013. The Port Mann has been a wedge issue; the NDP caucus had some squabbles that got public on the initial pronouncement that the province was looking into getting into a P3 to construct the new bridge (which was originally going to be a twinning). The NDP wisely has not replied to this. I’ll give this point to the BC Liberals – it is patently obvious to anybody that the corridor needs expansion and the quicker it gets done (on budget!), the better.
On the Evergreen Line, the NDP announced that they were going to build the Evergreen Line by bridging the $180 million funding gap and getting the project underway. The BC Liberals, in response, dredged up a 1999 quote by Mike Farnworth alleging that they announced they were going to build the line but never did. They also threw in a Derek Corrigan quote for good measure. That said, in terms of policy, the NDP does have a point – if rapid transit infrastructure is so important, and $180 million is the funding gap on a $1.4 billion project, nothing would provide more economic stimulus than getting this project underway just as the Canada Line construction is wrapping down.
It is hilarious to see both political parties mining their quotation databases to find quotes that are usually completely taken out of context. With electronic media, such words can be archived for all of history.