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Sunday, December 4, 2011

The Evergreen Line

"Fast, Frequent, Convenient" is what the banner says on the Evergreen Line website.
Well it isn't being built fast, that's for sure. Burquitlam has been hearing about rapid transit for almost 15 years. Originally, the line was to have been part of the Millennium Line, completed 2002. Lack of money or political impetus halted this, although there is apparently an incomplete platform on the westbound side of Lougheed Station, and I have noticed the spur track there, but didn't know what it was for.
Throughout the first decade of this century, when I was living at a different station, I constantly heard about how the Evergreen line was a priority. In reading the history, I can see how I got that impression, what I can't see is why it has taken so long to get to this stage.
The government website gives all the facts, heralding the boon this will be to the Coquitlam and Port Moody communities. "6 stations, 80 km/h, 3 minutes between trains at peak time". Of course it doesn't describe what I already know from previous experience will be a bit of a nightmare in the building stage. But I'm a bit of a masochist that way.
It was all these "facts" that got me reading the local newspapers in the first place, and going to the community association meeting, and thus I found out some other "facts".
Bosa Developments has plans for the Burquitlam Safeway lot - a two storey store, parking on the lower level, store above, and two giant towers over that. In the July 21, 2010 Coquitlam Now it was reported that city council had recently approved the zoning for that project.
Bloom, by Magnum Projects Ltd, has townhouses and low-rise apartments - about 79 of them. There is at least one more tower being touted as I go by Burquitlam Plaza - with a 100+ units.
The YWCA has almost completed its gender-specific project at 528 Como Lake Road. Apparently for women only (doesn't anyone else see the inequality here) who are parents without partners (is the Y saying single dad's don't exist? shouldn't exist? ) will be able to raise their children here in Burquitlam on one of the busiest roads in the area. Of course there will be little park for those children of single mom's to play because part of it will go for the bus loops. Single dad's, of course, weren't specifically targeted in anything I've seen so far.
And with all these residences going up, apparently meant for the masses of breeders, I have to ask: does this area have schools? I know the nearest rec centre is in Burnaby - is Burnaby city council amenable to providing the infrastructure to a Coquitlam project? Because I know the nearest pool sure isn't on the skytrain line and I'm willing to bet that single parents, male or female, often don't have a car, or are often short on gas - having been a single parent in a past life, I remember scraping money together to get my kids to swim lessons, also not on transit.
So what became evident during my research of my new home is that although the Evergreen Line is a long-time in the coming and will be a boon to the area in the long-run, in the short-run somehow there are a lot of questions that the powers that be have forgotten to address, or left to the last minute, or maybe are keeping to themselves in a "wait and see" attitude. Hopefully they won't wait too long.

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