Ropid transit caught in ‘death trap’

By FRED WILSON

Part two of the Greater Van-
Couver Regional District’s “high
Capacity rapid transit  in-
vestigation” is about to begin. It
Sounds great, but before you grab
Aled Coat and make for the subway

P, hold on, because rapid transit

S never been farther away from
pecower Mainland at any time in

last five years than it is today.

lat is the case despite the
Predictable campaign promises of
Ost every politician in the
Current round of municipal elec-
ons, and it is the case precisely

, to the actions of some of those
Vojicians, Vancouver’s Jack

olrich notably, who proclaim

€mselves the champions of rapid.

‘ansit.

eau is also due to the muddled
jg Broach of the GVRD itself which
cae oughing ahead with its “high
i pacity investigation”, mapping
ut the details of where the transit
ae will lay and figuring the
Mi d of shops that will locate at the

ation stops, while admitting

€re is no prospect of a rapid
ansit system until at least the
Mid 1980’s and at the same time

oo

Ler mie tile, Oe SOF NOS Sah Gee CED:

> Fh Oy oa

falling quickly into the trap of the

frovincial Urban Transit

uthority (UTA), which for rapid
ASS : =

ec

KI
ERRISDALE
MARPOLE
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ae

METROTOWN ip
EDMONDS

—
LANSDOWNE
RICHMOND CENTRE

2D

transit is nothing short of a death
trap.

Back in August the GVRD
completed part one of its “high
capacity investigation” and set out
the mid 1980’s framework. Why the
delay? The reason offered was a
slowdown in population growth,
but everyone knew that it was
politics causing the traffic jam, as
the provincial government was
already in the midst of dropping
the Urban Transit Authority onto
the municipalities.

Part one also confirmed what -
everyone knew: that the first
priority-for a rapid transit line is
along Kingsway to New West-
minster with a branch line ‘to
Surrey. The Arbutus to Richmond
line was given second priority. Yet
another earthshaking conclusion
was that the type of system should
be a “light rapid transit system’,
as if there ever was any other real
possibility. ‘

Now comes part two. It will
“determine what steps are
necessary to secure rights of way
for rapid transit”, decide what
kinds of urban development along
negotiations would go about the
same way: the municipalities

would negotiate how — through.
property tax, gas tax or hydro tax

“We don’t want any briefs,”
Nancy Grant, the GVRD’s
organizer answered, “‘its supposed

to be informal — shirt sleeve stuff. _

We want specifics, not broad policy
questions.”

To that effect, the GVRD will be
holding a series of ten informal
public meetings, spaced along the
proposed LRT routes, to get the
ideas of citizens about how a LRT
route will go through their neigh-
borhood.

“No broad policy questions?” If
the GVRD ever needed public input
on policy, it is now. g

The first broad policy question
that has to be addressed is why
LRT is being postponed for eight,
ten or more years when it is needed
now. And the second question has
got to be the working out of a
strategy to force the provincial
government and its agents like
Volrich to come to terms and put
out the money to begin con-
structing what has been studied
backwards and forwards.

The single largest roadblock at

_the present time is the Urban
Transit Authority which was
cleverly and sinisterly thrown
around the GVRD’s neck, almost
before they knew what had hap-
pened. The UTA, of course, is the
provincially appointed board
which will, under provincial
cabinet direction, plan and run the
transit system in B.C., including
future improvements like LRT.
The UTA will then negotiate five
year transit agreements with local
governments like the GVRD.

Not that there will be anything of
substance to negotiate. The ca-
binet has already imposed by
decree that the province will pay 60
percent and the municipalities 40
percent of transit costs, meaning
the deficits. There hasn’t been a
firm proposal on the capital and
operating costs of LRT, but the
the lines would be nice, and
“assess the effects that LRT and

TRANSIT MAP...GVRD‘S proposed LRT route still a long way from _ highway improvements will have

realization.

Nishgas outline

forest resource
Management plan

PRINCE RUPERT — Leaving
ho doubt of their ability to manage

© resources which they claim,
the 21st Nishga Tribal Convention
held here last week adopted a
detailed forest management
Tesource plan covering the 5,500
Square mile Nishga land claim in

© Nass and Skeena Valleys.

The Nishga are currently
argaining with the federal
80vernment over the land claim
although there is little progress
Teported.

The forest management plan
adopted by the Nishgas is
“ignificant because it strengthens
€ir demand for control not only
Over the land area and traditional
lunting, trapping and fishing
Nights, but over resources as well.
It is also significant because of
© Sound resource management
Policies projected, in contrast to
environmentally and
ee omueally dangerous forest
ns of th inci :
tear e€ provincial govern
“Sustained yield planning,
Consistent with practical har-
Vesting, enlightened forest
Management and good silviculture
Practices, will be used as a basic
<2 in all forested areas available
annual harvesting,’’ the polic
report said. : eos?

Sustained yield is a policy of
Tvesting only the amount of
| Tees as are being replaced by
‘\others growing to maturity. That

(PROVINCIAL NOTES:

on each other.”

Ek a eg ot ST a
a Te i ee
—_ :
¥
én Pl
F

TROLLEY BUSES...that's all the city will have until well into the ‘80's

as long as the Urban Transit Authority remains. :

— they would raise their share.

And the transit deficit for only the
existing bus system will hit $86.6
million, without any added LRT
costs, by 1985. It is a diabolical
scheme to make sure LRT can
never be afforded.

The worst part of it is that the
provincial government finds
willing stooges like Volrich who
accepted chairmanship of the UTA
and now has the job of
“negotiating’’ on behalf of the
province with the GVRD, and with
himself as mayor of Vancouver.
White Rock’s mayor McDonald,
chairman of the GVRD’s tran-
sportation committee, saw through
the set up and resigned his seat on
the UTA. z .

The GVRD really has little
choice but to completely boycott
any dealings with the UTA. If it
refuses to negotiate a_ transit
agreement, refuses to accept the
costs of transit operations, which
after all have been borne by the
province, or B.C. Hydro, up to now,
the Socreds will have little alter-
native to sitting down and working
out a whole new deal.

It will only be when the
stranglehold of the UTA is broken
that the details of the LRT will

. have any meaning, however much

talking about them gives the im-
pression that something is being
done.

There is one detail, however,
that part two of the GVRD study
should deal with and that is the

acquiring of the right of way. The .

longer the delay the more that it
will cost to buy up the land needed
and there is no reason, UTA or not,
that the GVRD and the municipal
governments concerned can’t put
the LRT right of way into a
publicily owned land bank right
now.

How to acquire the right of way
is one of the questions that part two
wants answers for. That is the kind
of decision that needs to be taken,
not studied. The land should be
bought, or expropriated, at
reasonable market values and at
the present value, not the inflated
ones that the LRT project will
create.

Because, if properly developed,
the LRT corridor could not only
give Greater Vancouver an ex-
cellent transportation system, but
it could also create for municipal
governments propery values that
could be the basis for progressive
social programs which up to now
have been out of the reach of civic
government.

policy was scrapped by the Socred
government earlier this year and
replaced with a policy of
“economic demand” which will
allow companies to cut as much as
market needs dictate.

The multinational forest com-
panies that presently hold timber
rights in the land claim area will
have to go, the Nishgas said,

“would be allocated
although they “wo od required About 400 people jammed the

timber rights for a peri
to recover the residual values of
the original investment.” During
the ‘write off period’, the forest
companies’ development plans
\would be integrated into the

Nishga plan.

harvesting permits would be
granted on a five or ten year basis,
far more limited than the 25 to 45
year terms allowed by the
provincial forest act.

Priority tasks for implementing
the management plan would be the
building of access roads and the
replanting of understocked areas.
The Nishgas put the estimated cost
of the project at about $33 million,
but they insist that it will benefit
the economy of the whole region.

“The policies proposed by the
Nishga are practical,” the report
stated, ‘‘They will also be
necessary for the future economic
health of this region. Once the
Nishga have acquired the right to
manage the forest resources of

their land claim area, the im- es

plementation of these policies is
possible provided the B.C.
Government and local forest
operators will make the reciprocal
commitments requested by the

Nishga.”

Trail USWA president

Marv McLean passes

TRAIL — The labor movement
was shocked last week with the

death of United Steelworkers of

America Local 480 president Marv
McLean.

McLean, 37, was felled by a
sudden heart attack on Sunday,
November 5.

Steelworkers’ Hall in Trail,
Wednesday, for a memorial ser-
vice which heard Steelworkers’
District Three officers Len Stevens

and Monty Alton deliver eulogies.

McLean became president of

: Local 480 in June 1973 at a time
Under the Nishga plan, timber when the union was being raided

by the Canadian Association of
Mechanical and Allied Workers
(CAIMAW) and when there was
considerable rank and file concern
over a poor collective agreement.
- It was under McLean’s
leadership that the union took on
Cominco in 1974 in the long and
.bitter four month strike which
united the whole community
against the company.

MARV MCLEAN

McLean is also credited with
forging the joint bargaining
council of Cominco unions, of
which he was chairman, and with
the western Canada Cominco chain
conferences of the union.

Local 480 vice-president Larry
White has been appointed interim
president by the union executive
until Local elections

April of 1979..

Nuclear power
plant planned

for Van Island
PORT ALBERNI — B.C. Hydro
and the Socred government have

‘plans to establish nuclear power

plant in B.C. in the near future,
NDP MLA for Alberni, Bob Skelly,
charged this week. :
Skelly was reacting to a public
statement the week before by
Hydro chairman Robert Bonner
that nuclear power will be a fact in
B.C. within 10 years ‘whether
people like it or not.”
- Thedecision to go ahead with the
Cheekeye-Dunsmuir transmission
line between the Sechelt peninsula
and Vancouver Island in spite of
public protest against the project
“can be-taken as an indication of
their commitment to construction
of a nuclear power plant on the
Island,’”’ he said. Since the tran-
smission line is designed to carry
three times the projected power
requirements of Vancouver Island,
“it has no other purpose’, Skelly
said, except to ‘connect Van-
couver Island to the mainland
power grid for the express purpose
of setting up a nuclear generating
plant on the Island which will
ultimately feed into the mainland
system.”

\

are held in’

Skelly called on the premier who )
is now minister of energy to put a
moratorium on the development of
the transmission line for five years
and to assure Island residents that
they “‘will not be used as guinea
pigs for Hydro’s nuclear ex-
periments.”

Coke, Fanta pop
hit by Federation

‘Hot’ declaration

PRINCE GEORGE — The B.C.
Federation of Labor has come to
the aid of striking members of the
Retail Wholesale and Department
Store Union, Local 604, who are
engaged in the North’s longest
strike at Goodwill Bottling Limited
since June 20, 1978.

The Federation this week issued
a “Hot” declaration against all
products of the soft drink bottling
plant from its strike bound Prince
George plant and from its mt
plant in Victoria. The declaration.
affects all Coke, Fanta, Canada
Dry, Sprite and C-Plus Orange soft
drinks sold on Vancouver Island
and in the North, from Williams
Lake to the Yukon border and from
Prince Rupert east to the Alberta
border. The Southern Mainland,
south of Williams Lake, is not
affected by the “Hot” declaration
because a different employer
bottles and distributes the products
in that region.

The long strike at Goodwill has
seen the company use
strikebreakers in an attempt to
continue operating and bust the
union which is struggling for a first
collective agreement. Federation
secretary Dave MacIntyre pledged
the full support of all affiliates in
assisting the Goodwill strikers. . .

SR