4 LEXPERT
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2017
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WWW.LEXPERT.CA
IF THERE WAS EVER A CITY in need of successful public transit Infra-
structure, it's Vancouver. Landlocked by mountains to the north and the
Pacific to the west, urban sprawl has for decades been pushed to the south
and east. Burnaby, Richmond, New Westminster, Port Coquitlam, Surrey.
Port Moody and Langley are just some of the bedroom communities that
have sprung up as density, space and cost force people farther from down-
town. Traffic has become a blood sport with no signs of a slowdown.
Eighteen years ago, there were 745,000 licensed vehicles operating in the
lower mainland, according to statistics from the Insurance Corporation of
British Columbia. Today the number is close to 1.7 million and growing.
"You have to get people out of their cars. You can't just keep building bigger
roads," says Maria McKenzie, a partner at Farris, Vaughan, Wills & Murphy
LLP in Vancouver.
e city got its first Light Rapid Transit Line, the Expo Line, linking Van-
couver with New Westminster roughly 20 kilometres away, for Expo 1986.
But aer that, busses and SeaBusses were the only public transit available
until 2002 when the Millennium Line opened, connecting Coquitlam to
PHOTO:
SHUTTERSTOCK
HOW P3 SHAPED VANCOUVER
Vancouver ranks
among the most
livable cities in the
world — an enviable
status owing in
no small part to the
city's P3-driven
transit expansion
VANCOUVER TRANSIT
By Sandra Rubin
