As the Tribune went to press this
week, civic organizations, labor
Councils and community groups
Were preparing a strategy session
_InVancouver to get some action on
What is perhaps the longest
Standing issue in the Lower
Mainland: the need for a light,
Tapid-transit system.

In fact, the issues before the
Strategy session this week are
Temarkably similar to those that
Other transportation conferences
have faced as far back as 1968.
That was the year the old NPA city
Council in Vancouver com-
Missioned a San Francisco firm to
Map out a freeway system for
Vancouver.

Piece by piece, the NPA
Stalwarts, backed by the CPR, the
automobile lobby and the highway-
building Socred provincial

together a network of freeways
through Vancouver.

So began the freeway fight in
Vancouver that broke out the
following year with an enraged
Chinese community. fighting
_ against the north-south freeway
Connection that would have cut up
Chinatown. In 1970, Strathcona and
Grandview residents rose up
against a similar plan to connect
the new Georgia Viaduct with
Highway 401, a freeway that would
have ploughed through the east end
of Vancouver destroying 1,200
homes.

In 1971-72 another front of the
freeway fight opened, this time on
_ the north, with the battle over the

Proposed third crossing of Burrard
| Inlet. Many in the massive
| Citizens’ movement that defeated
the third crossing thought that the
Issue had been settled.

But not so. Six years later the
Lower Mainland isn’t any closer to
a comprehensive public trans-
portation system. An NDP
) provincial administration has
_ ome and gone, and a new suc-

B0vernment, endeavored to put -

ceeding Socred government has
resurrected the old freeway fight
with a proposal for a fourth
crossing, but this time from the
east, across the Fraser River at
Annacis Island.

The Socred government is
proposing to spend $180 million on
the Annacis Island crossing to
pump automobiles along Marine
Drive and into Vancouver via
Boundary Road and Knight St.
Most estimates on the cost of a
light, rapid-transit system linking
Vancouver and New Westminster
is about $190 million.

But just to set the government’s
priorities straight, the Socreds also
intend to spend upward of $250
million on a new highway to Merrit
via the Coquihalla Pass, and
another $37 million to repair the
Lions’ Gate Bridge.

In Vancouver, six years of a
TEAM majority on city council has
yet to produce a workable plan for
a light, rapid-transit system that
would provide an alternative to the
Socred’s freeway plans.

Last November, the rapid transit
fight broke out again. Heightened
public awareness, a renewed
majority for the Burnaby Citizens
Association on Burnaby municipal
council and the Socreds’ freeway
plans combined to set Vancouver
mayor Jack Volrich off, “baying
with the hounds” as a Vancouver
Sun editorial placed it.

Volrich responded to Socred
minister Hugh Curtis’ statement
that the provincial government
would not make money available
for a light, rapid-transit system by
declaring that Vancouver would
pay for the system itself. A few
days later Volrich was forced to
retract his statement.

It was at that time that Van-
couver alderman Harry Rankin
took the initiative. Someone had to
do something — and it was fitting
that Rankin, who together with
other COPE members in Van-

Pictures from Granma
JOSE MARTI

Jose Marti Night

CANADA-CUBA
FRIENDSHIP ASSOCIATION

Friday, Jan. 27, 8:00 p.m.
~ 600 Campbell Ave., Vancouver

Music, Poetry, Refreshments

Celebrate

with

2679 E. Hastings,St.,
Vancouver, B.C.
253-1221

THE COMPLETE |.
-— TRAVEL SERVICE; ,

We will professionally look after
all your travel needs. We specialize
in tickets, tours, passports, permits
and reservations. Call us today —
for prompt personalized service.

, . a ;
GLOBE TOURS .

couver like Bruce Yorke and Sol
Jackson have been the outspoken
advocates of a rapid transit system
since 1968, as well as the citizen
leaders of the mass _ struggles
against the freeways, should do it.

November 17, Rankin moved a
notice of motion in the Vancouver
Council calling on the city to ap-
proach Burnaby, New West-
minster and Surrey to allocate
funds on a per capita basis for
engineering studies on a light,
rapid-transit system. The motion
also called for a referendum of
Lower Mainland voters to approve
the spending of one quarter of the
capital costs necessary to build the
system. If the referendum passed,
the provincial and federal

governments would be under.

considerable political pressure to
provide the rest of the money.

With Rankin’s motion on the
table, COPE contacted the BCA in
Burnaby and the New Westminster
and Vancouver labor councils to
call Lower Mainland strategy
conferences to mobilize public
support for the initiative.

Volrich and the TEAM-NPA
majority on the Vancouver council
balked for time and decided to call
a public meeting on rapid transit
and related questions in January
or February, when Rankin’s
motion would be considered. A
date still hasn’t been set for the
public meeting.

Then, in early January, Volrich
bounced back from his earlier
tumble to grab the spotlight again
with a new proposal for an “Inner
Area Light Rapid Transit” system.

Prepared by Vancouver director
of finance Dick Leckie and city
engineer William Curtis, Volrich’s
new plan is, for the first time, a
concrete initiative. But it is also
characteristic of the mayor’s
political approach — ad hoc and
hastily conceived, and politically
right wing.

The essential question is the
financing of the system. Volrich’s
plan puts the onus of payment
exactly where you would expect it
from a right wing politician — on
the people. In fact, Volrich lets the
provincial and federal govern-
ments — and the corporations they
tax — off the hook without any
contribution at all.

Rather the plan would have the
bulk of the money come from
Lower Mainland car owners who
would have $20 annually slapped on

to the cost of their vehicle license -

fee. The same people would be hit
with a 2-cent gasoline tax, and
together with other Lower
Mainland homeowners would pay
an additional $10-$40 per year in
increased property taxes from 1985
on. :

Volrich’s plan is no doubt.exactly
the kind of proposition that
provincial and federal politicians
have been waiting for in order to
renege on their longstanding
commitments to help finance rapid
transit. But even so the ‘‘go it
alone’ financial proposal still
rests, of course, on provincial

In
Memoriam

We wish to express
our sorrow at the
passing of our dear
comrade

EDNA HAMILTON

Members of the
New Westminster
Club, CPC

approval for the higher license fee
and gasoline tax.

The second critical question is
who the light rapid transit system
will serve. The Vancouver-New
Westminster ‘‘Central Park Line’
is obviously the first priority. But

built into Volrich’s scheme is the’

“Arbutus line” linking Vancouver
and Richmond as the “second
priority.”

The ‘“‘Arbutus line’”’ turns out to
be only fast buses operating in
mixed traffic, but it is posed as an
alternative to the real ‘“‘second
priority,” a light, rapid-transit
connector along Hastings Street to
Coquitlam. In fact every transit
study shows Hastings Street to be
the most heavily congested transit

-route in the Lower Mainland. For

the mayor to opt for a bus route
from the city’s west end to Rich-
mond, only reflects his allegiance
to the middle class areas of Van-
couver’s west side.

Finally, the service itself is at
question in Volrich’s plan. It
contains only a general concept of
tunnels and above ground right of
ways without much thought given
to the actual kind of “rapid tran-

sit” given. For example, the |

mayor would have the system stop
for traffic lights -at Main St.,
Renfrew St., Rupert St., and other
places enroute to New West-
minster.

As it turns out, Volrich’s plan is
not just ad hoc. The limitations on
the service are really by design,
part of what the mayor calls a
‘“‘balanced transportation
system.”’ The term will draw a
chortle from those who remember
back to the early struggles around
rapid transit.

“Some politicians and municipal
officials, feeling the pressure of
opposition to freeways and the
support for rapid transit, have
come out with a compromise,”
Harry Rankin wrote in a pamphlet
in 1971, ‘“They say we don’t need to
choose freeways or rapid transit,
and that we can have both. This
argument they clothe in the fine
sounding phrase, ‘‘a balanced
transportation system.”

“The reason we can’t and won't
have both freeways and rapid
transit in the Lower Mainland isn’t
only because we can’t afford both.
The cost would be staggering.
Even more important is the fact
that freeways and rapid transit

[ The rapid transit debate — 10 years later

serve opposing interests that can’t
be reconciled.”

Rankin’s words hold up well over _
the years. Volrich is attempting to
serve two masters, the tran-
sportation needs of the Lower
Mainland and the freeway building
plans of the provincial govern-
ment, but both demand full sub-
servience.

There will no doubt be more
twists and turns by everyone in-
volved in the transit debate, but as
it stands now, Harry Rankin’s
notice of motion remains the best
course to once and for all stop the
freeway plans of the provincial
government, and instead force
senior governments into meaning-
ful assistance in the building of a
comprehensive light, rapid-transit
system for the Lower Mainland.

1978 ANNUAL

Burns Night
January 28, 6 p.m.

Ukrainian Hall,
805 E. Pender,
Vancouver

Guest Speaker:
Port Alberni Alderman

George McKnight

Admission $6

Baron of beef, haggis and all the
trimmings, entertainment.
dancing, refreshments

Reservations: Call Sandra at
~ 937-3565. Tickets at Co-Op
Books and Pacific Tribune Office.

CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING

COMING EVENTS

BUSINESS PERSONALS

JAN. 24 — January 24th at 8 p.m.,
Unitarian Church, 49th and Oak,
hear John Morgan, President of
the Canadian Peace Congress
speak on ‘‘New Hopes for
Disarmament.”

JAN. 27 — Celebrate Jose Marti
night with the Canadian-Cuban
Friendship Association. Music,
poetry, refreshments, Friday,
January 27, 8 p.m. at 600 Camp-
bell Ave.

JAN. 28 — Soviet film and social
evening, Saturday, January 28 at
8 p.m., 832 Calverhall, North
Vancouver.
Admission $1.50.

FEB. 4— COPE celebrates Lil and -

Ben Margolese’s 50th Wedding
Anniversary, at the Peretz
School, 6184 Ash St.
Oakridge). Supper 6:30 p.m.
Dance 9 p.m. Refreshments.
Price $7. 0.A.P. and unemployed
$5. Committee of Progressive
Electors.

"WANTED

LS
WANTED ONE ELECTRIC type-

writer in good condition for YCL
use. Reasonable. Phone 879-5058.

Refreshments. —

(behind ©

THE B.C. WORLD YOUTH
FESTIVAL COMMITTEE would
like to borrow any Canadian or
International Festival posters.
We will return them. Also, can
we have your old Festival slices
in order to duplicate them? " :e
older the better? If so pleis
phone Sue at 254-9797. :

CARPENTER
874-1814

MOVING? CLEANUP? — Wanted
articles for resale. All proceeds
to P.T, Phone 526-5226. “The
Goodie Bin.”

HALLS FOR REN’.

WEBSTER’S CORNERS HALL —
Available for banquets,
meetings, etc. For rates: Ozzie,
325-4171 or 685-5836.

UKRAINIAN CANADIAN
CULTURAL CENTRE — 8905
East Pender St., Vancouver.
‘Available for banquets, wed-
dings, meetings. Ph. 257-3436.

RUSSIAN PEC °*LE’S HOME —
Available fc rentals. For
reservations prone 254-3430.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 20, 1978—Page 7