related corporate report<\/a> to council\u2019s May 11 meeting, with King George Station being the \u201cpreferred\u201d site of a pilot BRT station. There are 12 proposed BRT stops along the route, at Surrey Central Station, King George Station, 96 Avenue, 88 Avenue, 80 Avenue, 76 Avenue, Newton Exchange, 64 Avenue, South Surrey Park & Ride, the 32 Avenue Diversion, 24 Avenue, and Semiahmoo Town Centre.<\/p>\nCouncil heard during an April 27 presentation from Sarah Ross, TransLink\u2019s vice-president of transportation planning and policy, that there is funding in place \u201cfor the work we\u2019re doing now and to complete the detailed design, but we do not have funding in place for the full implementation of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councillors Mandeep Nagra, Linda Annis, Doug Elford and Mike Bose voted against this going forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the only solution connecting to Newton on King George is SkyTrain,\u201d Nagra said.<\/p>\n
Annis asked what the estimated budget is to build the BRT. Scott Neuman, Surrey\u2019s general manager of engineering, replied that TransLink hasn\u2019t provided an updated cost estimate. Annis then remarked that without a cost \u2013 and that Surrey should be \u201cthinking bigger\u201d with Light Rail Transit (LRT) \u2013 she said she can\u2019t support something she doesn\u2019t have a cost for.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we need to wait, find out what this is going to cost, and consider LRT,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Elford said he\u2019s convinced Surrey needs elevated transportation down King George. \u201cI took me an hour to get to City Hall today,\u201d the Newton resident said, \u201cand every time I tried a different route, up 132 or 128, it was just equally as busy so I just can\u2019t imagine another lane of traffic taken out down the King George. Elevation is the way to go and that\u2019s why I will not be endorsing this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councillor Harry Bains said he doesn\u2019t know anyone who thinks SkyTrain wouldn\u2019t be an \u201camazing\u201d option but added \u201cwe need transit today. The hour that it took you to get to work today, councillor Elford, isn\u2019t going to be solved by waiting 15, 20 years for SkyTrain.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we all know the financial situation of TransLink,\u201d Bains said. \u201cThe viability of having SkyTrain in the short term is very unlikely \u2013 TransLink doesn\u2019t have the money and I don\u2019t know anybody at TransLink that\u2019s saying they\u2019re going to build SkyTrain. What the BRT does is it gives us rapid transit immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nagra asked how long it would take to build the BRT.<\/p>\n
Neuman replied that if council endorses this now city hall can advise TransLink to proceed to detailed design and the estimate for construction costs will be \u201cfirmed up as part of that process.\u201d<\/p>\n
The investment plan needs to be done by April 2027, he added. Nagra asked when the buses will be moving down King George if council approves this now. \u201cIf this moves forward today and the investment plan is approved with funding from the Province and the feds, you could see buses realistically I would say end of next year, by the time construction\u2019s commenced.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neuman told council TransLink has the funding to proceed through detailed design. \u201cThen actual procurement, construction would be into the 2027 investment plan.\u201d Funding for construction isn\u2019t in place yet, he confirmed.<\/p>\n
Council heard LRT is four to five times more expensive than building BRT and SkyTrain is about eight to 10 times the price of BRT.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my view this is the most realistic option,\u201d Bains said. \u201cIf we ever get funding for SkyTrain, you\u2019re not going to hear a no from me, I\u2019m happy to see it. But again, we need people moving today, not 2o years from now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councillor Pardeep Kooner said she believes the BRT could be completed by 2030 \u201cand that\u2019s a helluva lot quicker than waiting a decade.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayor Brenda Locke said BRT makes sense.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t have any indication from the public that they\u2019re looking forward to seeing LRT,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Surrey council votes to forge ahead with \u2018100%\u2019 detailed design for King George Bus Rapid Transit Published 10:15…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,163792,87674],"class_list":["post-663886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-lower-mainland","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}