Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West is TransLink Mayors' Council's new chair

Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West is the new chair of TransLink's Mayors' Council

Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West. (@BradWestPoCo/Twitter)

One of Metro Vancouver’s youngest mayors, who is also amongst the region’s longest-serving municipal politicians, has been appointed as the new chair of TransLink’s Mayors’ Council.

Brad West, the mayor of Port Coquitlam, was selected as the new chair of TransLink’s governance body comprised of the region’s mayors.

He was nominated by Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim and later elected by default through acclamation when no other mayor was nominated to challenge Port Coquitlam’s mayor for the key role. Prior to becoming mayor in 2018, West was a city councillor for a decade.

“Thank you very much! I could really get used to this acclamation thing,” said West, who was also re-elected for a second term as the mayor of his jurisdiction through acclamation.

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West highlighted the importance of continuing the Mayors’ Council’s approach of presenting a united front to the public and when advocating for much-needed funding support from the federal and provincial governments.

Earlier this year, the previous makeup of the Mayors’ Council approved the Transport 2050 plan of a 30-year regional transportation expansion strategy and then subsequently Transport 2050’s 10-year priorities.

The 10-year priorities through 2032 carry a combined estimated cost of $21 billion. This includes nine bus rapid transit (BRT) lines across the region, doubling bus service to provide frequencies of 15 minutes or better to every part of the region, the construction of the gondola transit line from SkyTrain’s Production Way-University Station to Simon Fraser University’s Burnaby Mountain campus, the construction of SkyTrain’s Millennium Line extension from Arbutus to the University of British Columbia, laying the groundwork for further SkyTrain expansions, and ensuring the major road network supports businesses who depend on the road system to move around.

“This region is growing, and people are moving here and will continue to do so. And we can no longer afford a transit and transportation system that falls behind,” said West, adding that “the time for talking is over” and “people want action.”

“If we want to see the quality of life of our residents improve, if we want to see a growing economy that lifts people up, provides high-quality jobs that you can raise a family on, and produces the revenue that we need to fund the services that we deserve, and if we want to reduce carbon emissions and do our part to tackle climate change if we want to do all of that and more, then we have the plan that will deliver. We should not waste a moment in delivering it for the people of Metro Vancouver.”

While West’s selection was through acclamation, a majority of the Mayor’s Council voted for Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley as the vice chair of the body over Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke, who was also nominated.

Hurley emphasized the importance of everyone at the Mayors’ Council table to advocate for “regional equity and not just for our own cities,” which he believes can be largely accomplished by creating and growing a BRT network instead of only growing the SkyTrain network.

TransLink is pursuing BRT on a number of routes for reasons of the rapid transit mode’s ability to roll out such services quicker and at a lower cost — but this will require permanently removing vehicle lanes on major arterial roads for physically separated bus-only lanes, which may prove to be controversial.

“I strongly believe in our new and enhanced bus services, which can be delivered in a much more efficient and nimble manner than our mega projects, which seem to get delivered every 10 to 15 years,” said Hurley.

“While these services are important, our buses remain as the real workhorses of the system, and this is unlikely to ever change. With bus rapid transit, we need quick implementation and success to prove that road sharing can work and deliver a quick and reliable service while using zero-emission vehicles.”

During the recent civic election cycle, Hurley was also re-elected as Burnaby’s mayor for a second term through acclamation.

West and Hurley replace former New Westminster Mayor Jonathan Cote and former Langley Township Mayor Jack Froese. Both Cote and Froese did not seek re-election in their jurisdictions.

Thursday’s Mayor’s Council meeting was the first in-person Mayors’ Council meeting at TransLink’s headquarters office in New Westminster since February 2020, before the onset of the pandemic. All meetings over much of the past three years were conducted virtually.

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