According to Maple Ridge’s current transportation plan, now almost a decade old, there’s a need for a park-and-ride at Port Haney West Coast Express station.
Mayor Ernie Daykin can’t see it.
What needs to happen is to start working on a new train station and a park-and-ride in the Albion area, says the mayor.
And the future of Abernethy Way must be settled, as well.
“What does that look like to get it to 240th Street?” asked the mayor.
Should it be four-laned from western Maple Ridge as far as 232nd Street, he asked.
Those questions could be answered, or at least start to be answered in Maple Ridge’s next transportation plan, now underway by Urban Systems.
After the creation of a stakeholder committee, followed by staff and public meetings, a draft plan could be ready by early fall, consultant John Steiner told council Monday.
His company did the first draft plan in 2003 and presented council with an update on how much of it has been implemented.
According to Steiner, 21 per cent of the road network goals were fully or partly accomplished in the nine years of the plan, which provides a general framework for transportation goals.
But only 10 per cent of transit goals were fully or partly done.
There was more success for achieving bike or pedestrian projects. About 57 per cent of the pedestrian projects and 44 per cent of the bicycle projects were partly or fully done in those years.
Overall, the transportation plan, a general statement of the district’s long-term goals, was 42 per cent implemented.
Coun. Michael Morden wanted to know why fewer road projects were completed.
That’s because they’re more expensive, replied public general manager Frank Quinn.
Planning should also begin looking for alternative routes for hauling gravel out of the pits at the north end of 256th Street, Morden added.
“It makes sense for us to do some level of planning there.”
Coun. Al Hogarth said Port Haney station seems to be working well and agreed a new station in the Albion area, near 240th Street, needed consideration.
But he questioned extending Abernethy east of 240th Street. Dewdney Trunk Road from 240th and 256th street and 256th Street are “systems that already exist – and how can we improve them to accommodate the traffic that we’re talking about.
“Because all you’re going to do if you put in a new road, you’re just going to drive it through somebody else’s neighbourhood. I don’t think it will be different – other than a whole lot of costs.”
He also wondered if the district should review its developer-pay practice by which roads and sidewalks aren’t upgraded until new homes are built.
“So we end up with half a block that’s disconnected.”
He supported that policy and knew that costs could climb if sidewalks were built before an area is developed, “but we end up with these fractured areas.”
He also wanted some thought given to Brown Avenue.