No Light Rail in Vancouver!

Did You Know: Vancouver has a master plan for YOUR future

Each urban growth area would have a mix of land uses with housing, businesses, and services appropriate to its character and location. For example, the Vancouver Mall area would continue to be a retail center, downtown Vancouver will continue to be a center of finance and government, Brush Prairie and Hockinson are to be rural centers with community commercial areas, and the Mount Vista area will be a center of medical research and education (with the Washington State University campus as the center). Residential development appropriate to the needs of the workers and residents in these areas would be encouraged nearby. A primary goal of the plan is to provide housing in close proximity to jobs resulting in shorter vehicle trips, and allows densities along public transit corridors that support high capacity transit, either bus or light rail.

5.0 TRANSPORTATION

The Transportation Element is to implement and be consistent with the land use element. The Community Framework Plan envisions a shift in emphasis of transportation systems from private vehicles to public transit (including high-capacity transit and light rail), and non-polluting alternatives such as walking and bicycling. The following policies are to coordinate the land use planning, transportation system design and funding to achieve this vision.

(VancouverCompPlan_for_view.pdf, page A-7)

HIGH CAPACITY TRANSIT (HCT)

Starting prior to the adoption of the 1994 Comprehensive Plan and continuing until shortly after its adoption, regional and local jurisdictions from Oregon and Clark County,  participated in a high capacity transit study to determine what HCT systems are needed to:

(1) adequately address expected future travel demand in the Clark County-Portland region, (2) identify land use scenarios supportive of high capacity transit systems, and (3) determine the potential for coordination of services within the Vancouver-Portland region.

That study was entitled, “South/North Corridor Study’. At the end of the Tier I, South/ North Alternatives Analysis Study, a light rail transit (LRT) system was identified as the high capacity transit mode of choice.

Light rail was chosen at that time as the preferred mode for several reasons:

• it promotes desired land use patterns and development through its support of activity centers and bi-state policies;

• it provides high quality transit service, effective transit system operation, and future expansion capability; and,

• it provides for a fiscally stable and efficient transit system and maximizes efficiency and environmental sensitivity.

Light rail transit provides high quality transit service through ease of access, transferability, fast travel times, good reliability, and high ridership. Improved bus feeder service coordinated with transit centers would simplify and centralize transfers providing for accessibility throughout the transit system. Transfers from bus routes could be easily accommodated at station locations.

Light rail service in the county would provide more convenient, reliable service for people traveling inside the county as well as those traveling to destinations in Oregon. CTRAN buses would provide access to this regional HCT system. Transit centers would be located to make reaching the high capacity transit system easy for pedestrians, bicyclists, bus riders, and automobile drivers/passengers. These transit centers would serve as intermodal facilities, allowing people to make connections between different modes of transportation.

(Clark County Comprehensive Plan 2003-2023, Chapter 5 Transportation Element, pg. 5-11)

The plan appears to freeze various areas in their current usage, instead of allowing natural evolution as needs change.

The plan is to force you to use mass transit. The planner’s totally ignore the fact that mass transit costs more than a car, is less convenient and only runs limited hours. You are expected to conform to mass transit’s schedule.

Bi-state policies mean Portland’s weird policies.

High quality is many times more expensive than bus. More people could be served better with bus.

C-Tran becomes a slave to Portland’s MAX system

According to the DEIS, only 1650 people use transit to get to Oregon each day. (Compared to about 90,000 people in cars.)

Under 2% of the Oregon trips are on transit.

Walking and bicycling need high density to be practical - this is another inclusion of high density in the plan.

For examples, see Portland

Notice the “bus feeder” - that is the buses that have been re-routed to take people to light rail, instead of directly to their destination, adding a transfer and wasting time. It also increases the cost of the bus system.

Quotes from Vancouver's Comprehensive Plan

Quotes from Clark Couny's Comprehensive Plan

This is a plan to force you to live where the planners thinks is most efficient, instead of where you want to live in order

to support high capacity transit

Land use scenarios supportive of high capacity transit systems means high density.

And since high density costs more, tax subsidies will be needed to make it happen as is the case in Portland.

Do you want to merge with Portland?

Planners have only ONE desired land use pattern: High density.

Transit cannot be fiscally stable because it requires tax money to survive. Then more riders it attracts, the more it costs.