Quote:
Originally Posted by Urbanmetro
I'm not saying never build rail transit to Langley. Maybe in 30 years when the ridership and density make sense. 3.2 billion would be better spent servicing the already poorly serviced dense areas of metro Vancouver. Something else but considered us the increased bus service required to get people onto the train.
Another note, Langley will always be the outskirts of the metro. Density needs to be planned. Metro is not the way to push density. This will just cause speculation in land markets in the valley.
North America is a car dependant society. Especially so when living in the suburbs. Those that chose to live in Langley and work in Vancouver or Burnaby, 9/10 commute by car and always will.
Maybe Leipzig wasn't the best comparison, however, it's the principles that need to be looked at. Most decent European cities have very good transit in the city proper with less and less in the metro. Even massive cities like Paris, Moscow and Istanbul don't have a metro line that runs to or through farmland.
FYI, 140th and Fraser is basically already fully developed in a 500m radius and there's little population. That station will be like lake city way in Burnaby.
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Well, the only parts of the South of Fraser region with an actual density plan are Whalley (downtown) and Guildford; one's already covered by trains, and the other won't be at all. So if Fleetwood and Langley won't make sense for thirty years, Newton won't either.
It's a chicken or egg situation: rapid transit begets density begets rapid transit. Can't have one without the other. Besides, as mentioned, the SkyTrain plan does not exist in a vacuum, but will be accompanied by increased service hours on most bus routes.
You can blame the ALR, the Robert Moses School of city planning, and 50's local politics for Langley City... at the end of that blame game, LC's still going to be there, they're not going to be much further than most North American/Asian suburbs, and they'll still try to urbanize. The only question is whether or not we give them a SkyTrain, or watch more density turn into more drivers. If you're willing to wade through 5+ years' worth of forum comments, you'll find that a lot more Langley drivers than you think ARE willing to switch to rapid transit, so long as it's actually superior to cars and buses.
140th as a whole can still densify more (King George is, right now), but I see your point - Green Timbers is in the way of the station. I'll just add that KGB/92nd would have the same problem. Not every station can be a big ticket item.
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