B.C.'s transportation minister was expected to announce sweeping changes to the board and governance model for TransLink, Thursday (March 8), including the expansion of the Lower Mainland regional transit decision-making body's authority to include the Sea to Sky corridor.
CBC News reported that Minister Kevin Falcon was expected to announce expansion of TransLink's scope to include transportation systems from Pemberton to the eastern Fraser Valley.
That was just one of the recommendations of a provincial government-ordered independent TransLink governance review.TransLink, the review added, should also immediately expand regular transit service to include Abbotsford and Squamish "subject to transitional arrangements being negotiated."
The communities are already part of the transportation and economy of the wider service region.Municipal officials in the corridor have been working for the past two years to establish a regional transit function but have yet to see those efforts come to fruition.
The success of three recent four-month "pilot projects" with buses linking Squamish and Whistler funded by B.C. Transit and both municipal governments have provided fuel for those discussions.
While details of Falcon's announcement were unavailable by press time, media reports indicated that it was to include expansions from Pemberton to Hope.
The review stated: "Transportation systems must be efficient and integrated to respond to demand over a much larger area, likely from Pemberton to Hope."
