Mayoral candidate Jinny Sims vows to extend SkyTrain to Newton and South Surrey | Daily Hive

September 2020 artistic rendering of 160 Street Station on the Expo Line's Surrey-Langley SkyTrain Extension. (TransLink)

If elected as the new mayor of Surrey, Jinny Sims says she will advocate for the southward extension of SkyTrain along King George Boulevard to reach Newton and South Surrey.

“Fleetwood, Newton, Panorama and South Surrey all need a SkyTrain link to connect to the transit system in the Lower Mainland,” said Sims, who is the mayoral candidate for the Surrey Forward party.

“Without this vital link, it will be impossible to hold the line on transportation costs for Surrey families. By building a better transit network, we can create a stronger Surrey. It is time that Surrey got its fair share of transit investment. This investment will ensure the best growth and affordability strategy for Surrey.”

Sims is currently the BC NDP MLA for the riding of Surrey-Panorama. If she is successful in her mayoral bid, she will resign from her MLA seat, which will trigger a provincial by-election in the riding.

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Surrey Forward is also promising to advocate for other major improvements to TransLink’s bus service levels in Surrey.

They want extended hours for buses into the evening on every route until at least midnight, and increased frequencies. Sims has suggested having buses run every 10 minutes during rush hours.

“The transit system we have created forces us to rely on cars. This is foolish. This is both expensive and not good for the environment. We need a transit system that serves our needs. Transit is cheaper and better for the environment, but we have made it worse for the people of Surrey. Enough is enough. Surrey Forward demands change,” said Sims.

“Surrey has a very high ridership on TransLink and yet we are treated so poorly compared to Vancouver and the smaller centres in the Lower Mainland. We will not accept excuses. We will not be pacified by ‘soon.’ Change must happen now.”

Safe Surrey Coalition incumbent Mayor Doug McCallum has also made a similar promise to extend SkyTrain along King George Boulevard to Newton.

Gordie Hogg, the mayoral candidate for the Surrey First party, says he wants to see “rapid transit priorities” for “North-South” and Newton, but without specifying whether he would support SkyTrain. Surrey First was previously the main proponent for expanding a street-level light rail transit (LRT) network across Surrey, and the first of these LRT lines, the Surrey Newton-Guildford LRT, was cancelled after McCallum’s election in 2018 — buoyed by significant public opposition to LRT at the time.

With the cancellation of the 11 km Surrey Newton-Guildford LRT, its budget was redirected towards advancing the $4 billion, 16 km Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension of the Expo Line along Fraser Highway from King George Station to Langley Centre. Construction is on target to begin in 2024 for a completion and opening in 2028.

Surrey First incumbent city councillor Linda Annis says if elected, her party would aggressively lobby the provincial and federal governments for additional public transit investments in Surrey.

She went as far to say public transit “investments in Surrey should at least match Vancouver dollar-for-dollar because very few places can match Surrey for growth.”

“Increasing transit across our city into every neighbourhood is a real priority, and frankly Newton should have been included from the very start in the provincial plan to build to Langley. While we are looking to build east/west transit across our city we should also be building transit north/south from King George into Cloverdale, South Surrey and White Rock,” said Annis.

“The fact is, if we want to see more jobs in our city and less commuting to work outside of our city, we need to provide a lot more transit options. Better transit is good for the environment, it’s good for job creation, and it opens up new affordable housing options.”

Under TransLink’s Transport 2050 plan, King George Boulevard to Newton is identified as a rapid transit project, with grade separation considerations — but without specifying a SkyTrain extension.

Transport 2050’s priorities also call for advancing a handful of bus rapid transit (BRT) lines across Surrey within this decade, including a route along King George Boulevard between Surrey City Centre, Newton, and South Surrey. This would start with a southward extension of the existing R1 King George Boulevard RapidBus from the existing terminus at Newton to White Rock, followed by at least three new RapidBus routes that serve Surrey: a new RapidBus from Guildford Town Centre to Newton via 152nd Street; a new RapidBus from Langley to White Rock via 24th Avenue; and a new RapidBus route from Carvolth exchange to Scott Road Station via 96th Avenue. RapidBus is the precursor to BRT.

Additionally, the future R6 Scott Road RapidBus — launching in 2023 — from Scott Road Station to Newton would be upgraded to a bus rapid transit (BRT) standard.

TransLink and the Mayors’ Council’s top regional transit priorities are the SkyTrain Millennium Line extension from the future Arbutus Station to the University of British Columbia campus, and a fixed-link rapid transit line between the North Shore, Brentwood, and Metrotown via the Second Narrows.

In 2019, TransLink estimated extending SkyTrain southwards along King George Boulevard to reach Newton — a distance of roughly seven km — would cost between $1.2 billion and $1.4 billion in 2018 dollars. Upgrading the existing R1 RapidBus route segment along 104 Avenue from Surrey Central Station to Guildford Town Centre — another portion of the cancelled SNG LRT route — would cost about $300 million.

This SkyTrain and RapidBus combination on the cancelled SNG LRT corridor would attract a total ridership of 55,000 to 60,000 daily riders by 2050 — between 33,000 and 38,000 more riders daily than the status quo RapidBus, and up to 10,000 more than reviving SNG LRT.

The civic election is scheduled for Saturday, October 15, 2022.

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