Should there be a direct commuter service from the Fraser Valley to Metro Vancouver?
Posted July 13, 2016 6:34 am.
Last Updated July 13, 2016 6:50 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
ABBOTSFORD (NEWS 1130) – It’s no secret many people are looking to Abbotsford to escape the high price of housing in Metro Vancouver.
And given the routine slow-downs along Highway 1, especially around 232nd Street in Langley, some sort of direct commuter service to the Fraser Valley could make a move east a little more enticing to some people.
“Every now and then you’ll hear about people resurrecting the old interurban line,” says Abbotsford Chamber of Commerce president Allan Asaph.
That idea is nothing new with electric interurban lines having criss-crossed southwestern BC in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
In fact the now defunct British Columbia Electric Railway ran until 1979.
“The problem with that, that they forget, is that if you look at what has happened with SkyTrain, as SkyTrain goes out you also get residential development,” says Asaph.
Which neither Asaph and the chamber nor the City of Abbotsford want.
“The problem that we have, if you follow the old interurban line coming out, is that a significant part of that goes through ALR land,” says Asaph.
Neither want to deplete the amount of agricultural land and it’s one of the reasons Abbotsford’s newly-minted community plan calls for densification over urban sprawl as the city readies itself for an eventual population of 200-thousand people.
Asaph adds that while the city is embracing population growth, it hopes that its newest residents will both live and work in the region, rather than commute to and from Metro Vancouver.
