ALDERGROVE STAR STAR ALDERGROVE Your Hometown Community Newspaper for over 54 Years
| Thursday, May 3, 2012
A Family of Live Savers!! PAGE 13 Savers
Check our website daily for updates, breaking news and more: www.aldergrovestar.com
Page 3: New waterline coming to Aldergrove I Got It! I Got It!
Metro cool to valley separatists By JEFF NAGEL Black Press
HARRY HUNT PHOTO
Five year old Nathaniel Hunt makes the stop in goal during Aldergrove’s Spring Soccer Fun event, running for the next eight weeks on Monday evenings at Parkside Elementary School.
Metro Vancouver leaders so far aren’t putting much stock in suggestions that South of Fraser cities could break away and form their own regional district. Langley Township Mayor Jack Froese has said he wants his community to look at splitting from Metro and TransLink and either joining the Fraser Valley Regional District (FVRD) or forming a new partnership with Abbotsford, which wants to leave the FVRD. He cited disappointment over TransLink’s decision to freeze transit upgrades such as the promised Highway 1 RapidBus until its finances are sorted out. But Metro board chair Greg Moore said he thinks the idea is mainly being driven by Abbotsford, and warned a breakaway could be costly to Langley taxpayers. “I would suggest the cost implications would be quite high for good quality services they already receive,” he said. Moore said fans of the idea seem to mix up the roles of TransLink and Metro Vancouver, wrongly assuming Langley would stop paying the 17 cent per litre TransLink gas tax by leaving Metro. He said that would depend on the province’s willingness to let a breakaway municipality exit TransLink as well. Likewise, he said, anger over the impending tolls on the Port Mann Bridge have nothing to do with the regional district. “That’s a provincial government toll,” Moore said. “We won’t see a penny of that at the regional district or TransLink even.”
Moore said he welcomes cities that want to probe the value they get from the regional district, and added he and the board’s vice-chair will visit each council in the weeks ahead to answer questions about Metro services and funding. Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan said Metro isn’t perfect and Langley politicians are within their rights to ask tough questions. The bulk of Metro’s budget is spent delivering drinking water, treating sewage and disposing of garbage. Corrigan, the regional planning committee chair, said it’s not clear how Metro might unravel the financing of its water, sewer and other infrastructure in the event of a breakup, but said “anything can be accomplished” if there’s political will. He said the talk may be just “sabre rattling” born out of frustration with TransLink. But Corrigan also said Langley politicians have themselves to blame for pushing the province to expand the Highway 1 freeway, which Metro planners warned would undercut future demand for transit. “When you spend $3.5 billion on a road and a bridge, there isn’t an awful lot left over for transit,” he said. Having pushed successfully to twin the Port Mann Bridge, Corrigan said, Langley residents are now “absurdly” complaining about both the tolls on it as well as the lack of transit. “They could have borrowed $3.5 billion to build an integrated transit system in the Fraser Valley,” he said. “But they wanted roads and bridges. Now they say they want transit too.” SEE: Page 4
Aldergrove trolley aims to launch service this summer By NATASHA JONES Black Press
The organization that is planning a trolley bus service for Aldergrove now has an official new name: The Aldergrove Trolley Company. Although the trolley will now be launched a little later than the board of directors had planned, its business
plan is 99 per cent finished, and the company bylaws are complete and have been approved by the board, said chairman Dave Miller. The board had been targeting the B.C. Day long weekend to launch the first trip, but realistically it looks more like the Labour Day weekend now, he said.
The COOL place to...
Ph.604-856-2034 27070 Fraser Hwy. Aldergrove
The August date still remains a possibility, however, Miller said. He advised that Rich Coleman, MLA for Fort Langley-Aldergrove, has requested a copy of the business plan. “He is interested in helping us as much as he can,” he said. The trolley bus will be similar to
ay Birthd Birthday Party Parties!
one used in Langford on Vancouver Island, and will provide regular service to the community, providing a link to the major employment base of Gloucester Estates, as well as the senior citizens’ residential community of Pioneer Park on 0 Avenue, the town centre and the two shopping centres at the east and west ends of
Aldergrove. Meanwhile, the company is actively searching for its first trolley, which will then have to be inspected before it can be put into service, Miller said. The company will be ready to present its business plan to TransLink, which must approve it, within two weeks, Miller added.
y
Visit us online at www.alderalley.com