I don't mind putting transit before cars but in a way that does so that heavily compromises a major road where traffic is already chronic, this can't nearly be an acceptable solution. You'd double the amount of idling cars which would probably result in something worse for the environment (isn't that another key focus of this "livable city" thing?). The key issue with LRT is it really isn't going to be an improvement in speed. People in Surrey like being able to get around, quickly - and so do people everywhere else. If we are going to be putting improved transit into this city, it should be a faster alternative such as RRT, otherwise it
won't prove popular to newcomers and only end up adding to traffic nightmares. An LRT is travelling at 50km/h at the same speed as the rest of traffic. So even if this LRT going to be skipping traffic, as much as the local benefit could be, this is not good for Guildford on a general scale as a place people go to, which is going to be getting a big mall expansion soon which means more and more people are going to want to come here, esp. from the metro Vancouver to the west, as an alternative to places such as Metrotown.
Now, modern New Flyer buses take 40 people seated, and there'd probably be around another 20-30 standing on a fully crowded bus, which is extremely common on the Whalley-Guildford Routes. Considering at any given time there could be 4-5 of these buses running (320 every 10, 501 every 10, C74 every 15, 335 every 20, 332 every 30)... most of the time they are all filled to capacity (so 280-350 people), and despite that there are still long lineups at Surrey Central or big crowds at Guildford, waiting for buses. Each train carries 200 as earlier mentioned, and would probably only run at 7-10 minutes frequency. Now add the amount of people going through Guildford via the new rapidbuses to Langley & Coquitlam. Add the amount of people using local bus routes through Guildford, in case local routes are improved. Most importantly, add a whole bunch of people coming in from Vancouver & area to visit the new expanded Guildford Mall. There is no way such a system could be prepared for the future, perhaps even with trains every 2-3 minutes. There is proof that even with transit the route is going to become busier and busier on a sharp scale and this won't be able to handle it. You'd be making a useless investment because the usefulness runs out in a few years when the capacity tips over and it's a nightmare all over again, unless you blow even more money expanding it, all over again.
Perhaps indeed people are going to start realize 108th and 100th are faster than 104th... and then those routes would be clogged, at the MAJOR expense of locals living along these roads who use these roads for various things, including myself. North Guildford is not going to have any major east-west route. The people living southeast of Guildford will not have any major east-west route either; 104th is a nightmare, if 100th is a nightmare, no one gets around. These routes can and would easily become just as clogged as 104th even if the load is split in between. My siblings have a very hard time enough getting to school on the time in the morning on 100th, which is not nearly as bad as 104th, but is getting worse and worse as a bigger influx of traffic continues to use this road. I myself am having a very hard time on 100th now for purely local purposes. A problem with Surrey is it's not dense enough, in Vancouver people are willing to walk between homes or other social gatherings and such because it is a dense city and is only a short distance away. It is nothing like that here, trips are much farther due to the low density that this city was built around. Which is why people get around using cars. If you want to get people to get out of their cars esp. for short trips.... introduce some (well, a lot of) new community shuttles.... oh wait that's not even part of the plan. It seems that Mayor Watts doesn't seem to be focused on giving benefits to anyone except those actually living in this city (and these plans would backfire anyway as I have just pointed out), and this is not fine by me even if I do live here; this is not how you make a city friendly to others and worth going to.
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majority of the people in surrey do not use hwy 1 they use roads all around to get around
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The problem is that Highway 1 doesn't really go to Surrey. It dumps all that Surrey bound traffic onto 104th, and that is perhaps why it is among the busiest roads in Surrey. With the highway traffic (which will soon become more evident), and the Guildford Mall expansion coming up, more and more people are actually going to be coming through here. I also don't see what use widespread business on 104th between Guildford & Whalley could have except maybe every few blocks to serve local residents (and there aren't many there), because the developments are supposedly being centred around the centres. Those businesses are perhaps 50 years away, when both Whalley & Guildford both grow to a considerable size that business in between will actually add to the prosperity.
I can see how LRT would work in Victoria as it's a growing city in itself that's smaller and is a centre in itself, not necessarily being in between major centres or necessarily having to serve other people going through, as long as they don't decide too to compromise the major traffic nightmares that are Highways 17 and 1 outbound from the city.
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