"Breaker 1-9, Breaker 1-9:
Any of You Good Buddies Get This Trucker Math?"

(Note: this post is much better if you read in a Waylon Jennings voice)

I vaguely remember in the 70's (or at least in the pop culture of the 70's) that truckers were pretty clever. Movies like Smokey and the Bandit and TV shows like B.J. and the Bear taught us that people who worked in the trucking industry were hard working, intelligent, resourceful, and stood up against the injusitices of the day, like not being allowed to transport beer across state lines.

Paul Landry, President and CEO of the British Columbia Trucking Association, has pretty much blown that image of the trucking industry for me. Instead of standing up to the man like Burt Reynolds would, Landry is instead sticking up for the man, the man in this case being Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon. After decades of carefully controlled growth in the Lower Mainland, Falcon wants to shove road and bridge construction into high gear , with the most obnoxious project widening Highway 1 (First Avenue in Vancouver) to eight lanes (and counting) through East Vancouver. My East Side neighbours have so far responded by taking up arms, at least the kind of arms which can get you two minutes for slashing.

If Landry is the spokesperson for B.C.'s trucking industry, does he not realize how stupid he's making the trucking industry look, especially when he hijacks the op-ed page of today's Vancouver Sun (page A9) to carry Falcon's load and jackknife both the GVRD's Sustainable Living Strategy and proposed increases in transit funding? Landry claims that transit ridership is "mired at 11-12%", a number he appears to glanced at from a similar number in TransLink's annual report, which would actually refer to an increase in ridership (largely as a result of the U-Pass program).

Not only can Landry not add, he can't subtract either. Any sensible urban planner (including the right-wing ones like Gordon Price during his tenure as an NPA Councillor in Vancouver) will tell you that the more roads you build, the more vehicles will take up space on those roads, simply because they can. In the long run, that means less room for trucks, which in the longer run drives up prices for goods. Build more transit, and leaving the car at home becomes more of a viable alternative. It's especially viable when there's more money left in the pot for all kinds of transit initiatives, since nobody has to pay to expropriate people's houses for freeways.

If more cars stay at home because their drivers are using transit, what does that leave more room on the roads for? I'm sure that chimpanzee who worked with Greg Evigan could figure it out, how about you Paul?