March 4, 2008
Hundreds of Port Moody residents turned out for a town hall meeting on the proposed Evergreen Line last night, both in person and online, to share their thoughts, concerns and vision for the rapid transit line.
The town hall meeting was held in order to gather feedback from residents on the two corridor options for the proposed rapid transit line. More than 350 people came in person to the town hall meeting at city hall, while over 100 tuned in at home to a live webcast of the event. So far over 150 feedback forms have been submitted to the city. Written feedback is being accepted until 5pm on March 10.
"Port Moody residents clearly want to see rapid transit service, but on their terms," said Port Moody mayor Joe Trasolini. "Council’s job is to now make sure TransLink and the provincial ministry of transportation are very clear about Port Moody’s vision for this important project."
On February 1, 2008 transportation minister Kevin Falcon and TransLink CEO Pat Jacobsen announced the long planned rapid transit line would involve ALRT technology and then gave the northeast sector municipalities 45 days to gather feedback from residents about the two route corridors: the Southeast Corridor, which follows Lougheed Highway through Coquitlam and the Northwest Corridor, which would go at grade through Port Moody. Both routes would begin at the existing Lougheed Town Centre station and end at Douglas College David Lam Campus in Coquitlam.
"The turnout makes it clear that public interest is high in getting rapid transit to the Northeast Sector," said TransLink chair Dale Parker, who attended Port Moody’s town hall meeting. "Once we see the consensus emerge our focus will be to get all of the pieces in place as soon as possible and get the Evergreen Line project underway."
The City of Port Moody has encouraged growth in high density developments such as Newport Village and Suter Brook with the understanding that rapid transit would be built to accommodate the population increase and ease the severe congestion on local roads. Much of the city’s planning has been based on the construction of a rapid transit route along the northwest corridor. Until the February 1, 2008 announcement the rapid transit line was assumed to use LRT (light rail transit) technology. The province has now indicated that ALRT (an automated system similar to SkyTrain) will be used for the Evergreen Line.
Port Moody is committed to an open and accessible public participation process. The webcast of the town hall meeting was extremely popular, allowing people who could not attend the meeting in person to still participate. One online viewer thanked the city for providing the webcast, noting he was able to be at home with his three small children and still participate in the town hall meeting.
Port Moody council will be ratifying a report at their March 11, 2008 regular council meeting based on the findings from the town hall meeting, submitted feedback forms and their vision for the future of the city. The report will then be presented to TransLink.
