The Port Moody Western Station Committee is taking aim at the Evergreen Line’s environmental approval application because it doesn’t include the possibility of a third station in their city.
“We are disappointed that there are no plans for any environmental assessment for the station to be built as part of the original construction plan,” said committee spokesperson Robert Simons. “Considering the community input that was part of consultation for the Evergreen Line last fall, there was a strong voice to create a western station as part of the original build... and it doesn’t appear to have gone any further.”
The Evergreen Line’s environmental assessment certificate application, which is currently in a 60-day public input phase, considers only two PoMo stations, one at the transit exchange site near Williams Street and the other at St. Johns Street and Ioco Road.
(There are only two stations noted for Coquitlam as well, at the Johnson/Mariner overpass and at Douglas College.)
The Western Station Committee says that with no plans for a third station, the latest Evergreen Line forecasts effectively ignore a third of PoMo’s residents and highlight the city’s lack of vision for a transit-oriented development in the current official community plan draft.
Although Port Moody council supports a third station, they’ve been unwilling to allow any densification in the city’s west end, or elsewhere, until construction on the Evergreen Line starts.
Simons said that will be too late, as is consideration for a third station in the future because that wouldn’t meet the current needs of PoMo’s western residents.
“We know there are challenges but those challenges can be overcome with due diligence,” he said.
• The next public input session in the Tri-Cities is July 8, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., at Port Moody’s Inlet Theatre. Comments can also be left online at www.eao.gov.bc.ca. Consultation on the station area design is expected in the fall.
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