It's the driving, Stupid.

Premier Campbell and Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon re-announced The Gateway Project yesterday, pounding another nail into the GVRD's Liveable Region Strategy. Rather than developing a long-range transportation plan that accounts for social, economic, and environmental factors, Kevin Falcon opted to just keep going down on the BC Trucking Association and the BC Auto Dealers Association, both groups proud supporters of the BC Liberals.

The end result is a $3 billion dollars worth of roads, roads, and more roads, with "room" for transit buses on the new Port Mann Bridge (no dedicated transit lane, just "room"). The RAV Line and Coquitlam LRT were thrown into the package, just to make the car fetish look a little less unseemly. If the Liberals are so concerned about congestion, what about rapid transit along the Broadway Corridor to UBC, easily the busiest transit corridor in the Lower Mainland?

This page could care less that Greater Vancouver only had 900,000 residents when the Port Mann Bridge was built in 1964. Fourty-two years ago, there was a hell of lot more oil and the hole in the ozone layer was a lot smaller. The Transportation Ministry has a responsibility to move people and move goods, not to subsidize suburbanites addiction to fossil fuels. Force these people out of their cars, and a lot more space opens up on the roads to get those trucks moving. For those of you whining "but I need my car", if you have convenient public transit in your area, why do you need your car? If you don't have the transit service you need, neither do your neighbours, so maybe you should get together to elect someone who will provide that service.

Before Gordon Campbell turned into a Pavement Premier, he served on Vancouver City Council with one Gordon Price, who was a strong advocate for public transit and cycling. When it came to balancing those transportation options with driving, Price remarked "Congestion is our friend." Congestion has been enough of a friend to allow for extensive greenways and bikeways throughout the Lower Mainland. Congestion created densely populated and vibrant neighbourhoods in Yaletown and the West End. Congestion gave us the U-Pass and the Employer Transit Program.

Congestion is a friend being stabbed in the back by the Gateway Project. This page won't hide his disappointment that billions of dollars in P3 overruns and our quality of life are going to be flushed for car-driven idiots who refuse to get on the road a little earlier or be bothered to read a bus schedule.