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Just because I was talking about the benefits of a station at 184 street doesn't mean that is where I want the final terminus to be. I was comparing a station there to Scott Road. Scott Road WAS the terminus for a while, and while it was, it was a major benefit to the people of Surrey. Of course it was extended from there rather quickly. So if a phase of Skytrain construction ended at 184 (or better at 188) it would radically alter transit in Cloverdale as it would be a major hub, allowing a better bus network to take shape, with shorter, more frequent routes, using less buses and man power than it does now to get people into King George. But I would expect the Terminus to be temporary as the line is extended further to Langley.
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Scott Road is now a park'n'ride with no useful development and it is because of doing this. Lines should be built the full way, not part-way, or this happens and areas that would've become perfect residential/commercial/industrial hubs end up going nowhere.
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Because getting into Surrey is a giant pain in the ass for Cloverdale/Clayton residents. Between Cloverdale and Langley there are only a handful of connecting streets and transit is slow. Cloverdale is more geared towards Langley because it is easier to get to Langley than Surrey.
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Unfortunately that is the city's problem; Clayton has been planned since the late 90s and unfortunately the City has so far chosen to support it. Where new development is concerned, I would've liked to instead see it in the area just south of Newton and much closer to the city and potential transit expansion. I would also like to see Newton, Guildford, and Fleetwood actually densified and the remainder of still-empty lots filled. To say "screw you" to these areas and building anew somewhere far away is creating more problems for the city, creating problems for the people who will live there, and creating huge problems for areas that already exist.
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My support goes to Skytrain that connects Guildford, Whalley and Newton as a separate line; until serious and widerspread densification takes place in the SOF, extending the expo line would be costly and ridiculous. The lines would be expandable: south from Newton to South Surrey, North from Guildford to Coquitlam via the PMB, and southeast to Langley via Guildford. The SOF is currently Surrey, Langley, and in the much distanced area called Abbotsford - an area way more distanced from Surrey than Surrey is distanced to Vancouver.
Consider how and why Skytrain was built in Vancouver. Metro Vancouver excluding SOF is bordered by many, many more communities: Richmond, Burnaby, New Westminster, Coquitlam, Port Moody, North & West Vancouver.... unfortunately where Surrey is concerned, there's really only Langley and perhaps New Westminster (already served). Where Skytrain in Vancouver is concerned, there are many many many cities to serve. At the moment in terms of the SOF, there are only two cities. If you count the smaller town centres as cities, well.... they're at the moment too small to be cities. We want these town centres - starting with the ones closest to the biggest (Whalley) to grow into effective cities first. When Skytrain was built to New Westminster, density was already there in New Westminster. Even the Metrotown area had a decent skyline as far early as at least 1982. In terms of the SOF, comparing Fleetwood & Langley to Burnaby & New Westminster, the same kind of density and population is not there. Where that population mostly is is in Guildford and Newton. In this case, modelling after Metro Vancouver may not necessarily be the best idea. Where Brentwood & Broadway are concerned (compared to Guildford and Newton), they did not suffer from mediocre road connection or mediocre transit connection at all and the density was much lower; therefore building skytrain/rapid transit to those areas later actually makes sense. In Surrey, it does not.
Surrey supports densification across the entire city... or if this is not the case, it should be done so, because this is exactly what needs to be done before any skytrain expansion to regional destinations should even be considered. When they built Skytrain in Vancouver in 1986, the majority of the actual city it was serving was already densely populated; this is not the case in Surrey. If we have a big downtown Whalley but the massive remainder of the City of Surrey remains at the density of the city of Calgary, Surrey won't effectively and truly grow up. Densification needs to be promoted in these areas to create a vibrant urban community before focusing on the suburban community beyond and creating other disasters like Surrey was initially created as. In addition, where Vancouver is concerned, there were perhaps many areas not served by Skytrain in 1986, however the situation in Vancouver was different. Transit in Surrey is mediocre; in Vancouver it is quite the opposite as the bus network is intricately designed and usually fairly well run. In the majority of the city south of downtown, where rapid transit development was not taken to, has still managed to grow based on a bus network and excellent acommodation to pedestrians.
The majority of the main City of Surrey does not have that great transit, nor the density. The rest of Surrey will take a downfall and the kind of city you would create would be nothing like the success that Vancouver is today; the city itself will never grow in the same way. The town centres of Guildford & Newton will be just as dead as they are today. I would like to be able to go to the highest building someday and see skyscrapers dotting the entire line between Surrey & Guildford complementing existing ones, and more skyscrapers in the distance to Newton. However, the way rapid transit seems to be planned and supported, it seems that at the end of it all, the skyscrapers in Whalley will end in a sudden wall, giving way to the rest of the city which had not become any different whatsoever and remained low-density suburb because the development was improperly planned. Perhaps Surrey is indeed meant to be suburban, at heart, forever.
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