Maple Ridge Mayor Ernie Daykin says that Maple Ridge wasn’t ignored when TransLink’s Mayors’ Council created its transportation vision.
Improvements to West Coast Express and introduction of a B-Line, or Rapid Bus service are two examples cited by the mayor.
But there’s a little word that could have big consequences for Maple Ridge, which could be left out of Rapid Bus service.
In the section outlining transportation projects in the northeast sector, which includes Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge, the plan holds out the B-Line service as a “faster and more reliable connection” to the Evergreen Line.
But it gives two routes, one would run from Coquitlam Centre – the terminus for the Evergreen Line – to downtown Maple Ridge.
Or, says the plan, a B-Line route could just run from Coquitlam Centre to Langley, over the Golden Ears Bridge. That would leave downtown Maple Ridge with no Rapid Bus of B-Line service.
Daykin says he has no idea how the either-or scenario, in which Langley’s gain would mean Maple Ridge’s loss, got into the plan.
And it’s not fair, he added.
“I’ll fight tooth and nail on that one,” he said. “I don’t know where that came from.”
Langley already has bus service over the Port Mann Bridge, he pointed out.
The new express bus service from the Carvolth park and ride over the bridge to Braid station is already at 70 per cent capacity, he added.