Tag: MTP

Consultation over desperation

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 4 Comments.

Like many others, I have been watching the ongoing Pattullo Bridge roadshow with some interest. It is an interesting approach our City Council is taking on behalf of the livability of our City, and actually an example of leadership in the region

I have already written a piece about the City of New Westminster’s Reasonable Approach position paper on the Pattullo Bridge, and have done a bit of my own road show: going to various places around town asking people to send letters of support to the City. I have actually been pleasantly surprised by the reaction from residents across the City, as they seem overwhelmingly in support of limiting or reducing the traffic impact on New Westminster from any replacement or refurbishment of the Pattullo. The idea of tolling the Pattullo (or at least that of level regional tolling) seems to have the strongest support, as the data relating to increased traffic induced by the Port Mann tolls is clear to even the most pro-driving-in-traffic people (because even the most pro-driving-in-traffic people seem to be against other people driving in their neighbourhoods mucking up the traffic…. but I digress) .

However, some people are wondering why our city Councillors are travelling to other Cities to make the case. I will argue that the unfortunate quote of Councillor Puchmayr in the Record – “It’s a move of desperation” – both mischaracterizes what is happening, and makes the case for the real reason the City is expending this much energy. Even perennially-daft Rick Cluff understands, with the City’s Master Transportation Plan nearing completion, the Pattullo Bridge is the #1 transportation issue in New Westminster right now. It is important that we get it right.

The fate of the Pattullo Bridge will not be decided by New Westminster, it will be decided by TransLink in consultation with New Westminster, Surrey, and other stakeholders. It is very likely (although this is only speculation at this time) that the Pattullo Bridge replacement/refurbishment will be part of the package of projects that will be included in whatever major projects master plan the Mayors Council puts together for the TransLink Referendum. With New Westminster being a small fish in that relatively large pond, it is critically important that our small voice be heard, and our rationale explained clearly, to the entire stakeholder group in the regional transportation mix.

This is not the desperate act of a Council that does not have facts on its side. The Reasonable Approach document outlines how expanded capacity at the Pattullo does not address the problem set identified by TransLink, does not meet the objectives set out by TransLink for addressing the Pattullo Bridge, and is in opposition to every transportation and land use plan approved by New Westminster, Surrey, TransLink and Metro Vancouver over the last 20 years. It also details, with supporting data, the negative impact that making the Pattullo the “toll free alternative” has had on the livability of New Westminster and Surrey. It is a well-argued case, based on regional priorities and objectives.

The problem is, that paragraph I just wrote will never make it into Rick Cluff’s brain. It will never make it into the Metro Newspaper, or into the editorial pages of the Vancouver Province or the GlobalBC Newz. If the City of New Westminster wants the decision makers across the region to understand what the position paper actually says, they will not be able to rely on the media to deliver that information. They need to get the correct information into the hands of those Councils and Mayors who will be advising on the regional transportation plans. The media isn’t going to do that for them, not accurately, at least.

It may not be obvious to most people, but all of the Councils of the various Cities rarely get together to talk about each others’ issues. Yes, there are regional boards, organizations like the UBCM and FCM, and occasional issue-driven direct meetings, but in their day-to-day world, the 20-odd local government Councils that make up Metro Vancouver do not converse with each other, if only due to practicality of making it happen. City Councillors in Langley City have enough on their plate every week just managing the issues of their community, they cannot hope to be up-to-date on every issue in West Vancouver or Port Moody. The most likely way a Councillor in one City is made aware of issues in other Cities is through the media, or direct written correspondence sent between Councils (this correspondence, more likely than not, written by staff and responded to by staff).

New Westminster Councillors going to meet with other Councils directly in their own chambers during a public Council Meeting is unusual, but not unprecedented. More importantly, it allows New Westminster Council to communicate directly with the decision-makers in the adjacent communities without the filter of the media or staff changing (intentionally or not) the message that is being sent. As a bonus, these communications are as transparent and open as possible.

There is not better example of the perils of relying on the Media to relate the core message than this story of Burnaby Council’s reaction to the New Westminster meeting. The headline “Burnaby reluctant to support New West’s bridge proposal” would make any reasonable reader assume that Burnaby supports the opposing view (promoted mostly by the City of Surrey) that the Pattullo should be 6 lanes and untolled. However, the real story is that Burnaby felt New Westminster was being too reasonable in their approach, and should take a more extreme position of getting rid of the bridge altogether.

With this type of misunderstanding so easy to make, even between City Councils, I think it is a great idea for New Westminster Council to engage their regional partners directly. I imagine they recognize they are in for a bit of a debate at some of their stops, but that is the purpose of consultation.

Far from “Going it alone”, the City of New Westminster has taken the problem set agreed to by all parties, used TransLink’s own data, compared the various scenarios to the Regional Growth Strategy, the Regional Transportation Strategy, and the Master Transportation Plans and Official Community Plans of our neighbouring communities, and arrived at a reasonable approach that protects the livability of our community, saves the regional taxpayer money, and provides some of the public transit funding that Surrey so desperately needs, then personally delivered this analysis to all of the regional partners to discuss it and hope to seek a common understanding.

You can call it an act of desperation if you want, but I see it as an act of rational, pragmatic, and collaborative local governance.

on the Reasonable Approach.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

This is a really good document.

I don’t want to go through the many reasons why I agree with the City of New Westminster’s position on the Pattullo Bridge, because I have said it all here before. For those new to my blog (Hi Tiffany!), there is a longish summary here.

If you really want the background from my viewpoint, you can read this, or this, or the two-part piece I did comparing the Pattullo to the Lion’s Gate that is here and here, or maybe look at this or this, or any of the other hundred posts about the transportation situation in our dear city I have slogged through over the last 5 years. But this is not about me, this is about the City of New Westminster finally laying their cards on the table, and in doing so, showing that they are holding a hell of a good hand.

New Westminster is clear that anything larger than a 4-lane bridge is undesirable. Surrey has stated that they prefer a 6-lane bridge. The difference, as explained in this 40-page volume put together by the City of New Westminster, is that the problem set which was agreed to by all parties (New Westminster, Surrey, and TransLink) more than a year ago does not support the building of a 5- or 6-lane bridge. Also, those larger options come with costs, both monetary costs that could be better invested in Transit South of the Fraser, and livability costs on New Westminster.

You can get the gist from reading the 4-page Executive Summary, and I think anyone interested in the topic of traffic in New Westminster and/or the future of the Pattullo Bridge really needs to read those 4 pages before commenting at length about New Westminster being “NIMBY” or “parochial” about this topic. I’m including you, Mayor Stewart. However, there are rewards for digging deeper into this position paper, because it actually provides data to back up its assertions.

After a review of the consultation and planning process to date (reminding TransLink once again that they don’t have a bridge-too-small problem, they have a bridge-too-old problem), the City lays out the case that there is no need for increased capacity as the problem is solved. To back this up, they demonstrate that the traffic volumes on the bridge were stable, or even declining until tolls arrived on the adjacent bridge, and the Ministry of Transportation started installing signs telling people to drive through New Westminster to save a few bucks.

All graphs here cribbed from the City report.

The City is also right to point out that the number of crossings of the river is increasing at such an (exponential?) rate that it is hard to rely on any modeling of actual or projected growth until new patterns establish themselves. I tracked the crossings back to 1900, they stuck to the more recent data:

I didn’t even ask permission to crib them from the report. 

Despite the rise in crossings, people still argue that more lanes are required to facilitate growth. I have heard Vancouver used as an example of growth not requiring more roads, but the City decided to look at the Richmond example, pointing out how it paradoxically grew by more than 50% since the last time there was any significant bridge construction (with the notable exception of the SkyTrain Bridge!)

but hey, i’m a taxpayer, so I paid for the report. 

In Sections 3.3 and 3.4 of the report, it is demonstrated that the building of a higher-capacity bridge is not supported by TransLink’s own Regional Transportation Strategy or the Regional Growth Strategy, and in fact counters those strategies by inducing development that is counter to the region’s goals. If any part of this report is weak, this is it, only because the City seems reluctant to toot its own horn. So I’ll do the tooting here.

New Westminster has the second-highest “alternative mode share” of any city in the Lower Mainland, second only to the City of Vancouver. This means that New Westminster residents are leading the region in finding alternatives to driving cars for their work commute, for shopping, or for school. New Westminster is building the compact, transit-oriented, pedestrian-friendly City that is outlined in the regional transportation and land use plans.

When Surrey says New Westminster is being intractable and a terrible regional partner, the point needs to be retorted, firmly, with bold print, underlined and in contrasting colour: How is doing exactly what our regional partners have agreed is the best course an example of being a bad partner!?! It is time Surrey started looking at their own choices: utterly failing to protect farmland; continuing to build unsustainable auto-oriented neighbourhoods; for continuing to threaten the livability of the entire region. When is the region going to start to question Surrey about the ways it is falling short in the “regional partner” relationships department?

This is why the City of New Westminster is taking the “Reasonable Approach” of asking TransLink and the Province to take the money that is being set aside for the Pattullo Bridge replacement, and invest it in helping Surrey meet its regional commitments.

I am also happy the City took a direct approach to the “Killer Bridge” stigma of the Pattullo. I have written about this meme and its accessory suggestion that the Pattullo must be replaced because it is so dangerous. The City effectively demonstrates this is not the case, and once again relies not on hearsay or platitudes, but the actual numerical data:

So I don’t feel bad having lifted them, at least I’m citing them.

The New Westminster report then goes through a comprehensive discussion of the preferred options, and touches on a number of aligned issues in the region and the City. This includes the current hot-button topic of truck impacts on New Westminster streets. On this topic, the report pulls out this provocative quote:

“It is of interest to note that on the other side of the Fraser River, the issues of truck traffic appear to have been substantially addressed. An article in BC Business reporting observations made by Jim Cox, then-CEO, Surrey development Corporation, noted ‘Cox gives full credit to Watts and her big-picture vision, such as changing the name of King George Highway to King George Boulevard, and creating South Fraser Perimeter Road to divert all that ugly truck traffic away from the heart of the city, making the streets walkable for the first time in Surrey’s car-loving history.‘ It is also worth noting that the costs of the South Fraser Perimeter Road have been covered by the Province.”

At the same time Surrey is touting the removal of trucks from it’s neighbourhood streets on the Province’s dime, it is advocating that the Province spend more money to put those same trucks on New Westminster’s neighbourhood streets.

I also liked that New Westminster included a statement on building a well-designed bridge, reflecting its importance as an icon in our skyline and a major piece of infrastructure in the middle of an urban neighbourhood:

“If a new structure is to be built, it should be the subject of an architectural design competition in which the cities of Surrey and New Westminster are full participants. If a rehabilitation option is chosen, attention should be paid in the design and maintenance processes to improve significantly the present appearance of the
bridge.”

And yes, the City of New Westminster has come down clearly and firmly in favour of tolling the Pattullo bridge, both as a revenue generator to pay for the replacement of refurbishment, and also as a “leveling of the playing field”, to end this unfortunate phase where our neighbourhood streets are deemed the cheap alternative to paying for road infrastructure through tolls.

Even better, with flat growth of traffic and tolls on a refurbished 4-lane or new 4-lane bridge, there will likely be no need for senior government money to build the project. As the Report summarizes:

“As the Pattullo Bridge Strategic Review indicated that the rehabilitated 4-lane option and the new 4-lane option can be self-funded through tolling, there is the question whether senior government funding is necessary if one of these options is selected. The reality is that public money that is spent on the bridge will restrict the ability to fund other much needed projects such as the Light Rail Transit (LRT) system within Surrey. The City is supportive of reallocating capital cost saving from a rehabilitated 4-lane bridge project or a new 4-lane bridge project to the much needed rapid transit system in the City of Surrey.”

So in summary: The City of New Westminster does not care if the Pattullo if refurbished or replaced, as long as it is tolled, has no more than 4 lanes, and is build in such a way that respects the urban character of the neighbourhoods and the importance of this structure to the region’s history. Not just because that is what the City wants, but because that solution fits the problem analysis best, saves senior governments money, meets regional goals, and reflects the values of our regional community in 2014. Compared to this well-assembled, well-supported, and comprehensive analysis, Surrey’s completely unsupported “More Bridge now!” argument is embarrassing.

Now to my major point: TransLink is stuck in neutral, Surrey is lobbying senior governments, and the Minister of Transportation sounds like he is listening. New Westminster has now presented a solid case, and will be taking this forward to those interested parties. The City needs your help. Get this report to your Residents’ Association meeting and get them to write a short letter of support to Mayor and Council. Are you active in the PAC in your local school? Ask then to also write a letter of support, and ask your school board to do the same. I hope the Downtown BIAs and the Chamber of Commerce, and even my friends at the NWEP can also get a letter together ASAP and show that this position is not that of a few people on Council, but is the position of a united, involved, informed, and proactive community.

TransLink cancelled the consultations that were supposed to be occurring right now in New Westminster to discuss the future of the Pattullo, but let’s make them hear from us anyway.

Why Delay? Why Now?

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

This has me perplexed, and disappointed.

POSTPONED: Pattullo Bridge Review Consultation

TransLink is deferring announced public consultation regarding the Pattullo Bridge, which was to begin next week. This deferral will allow TransLink time to work with the Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation to respond to last week’s request from the Province that the Council work with TransLink to develop a plan for transportation in the region. As the Pattullo Bridge is one of the key priorities for the region, TransLink needs time to confirm with the Mayors’ Council how options for this project will fit into the regional plan, which the Mayors have been asked to deliver by June 30, 2014.

TransLink anticipates completing this work as quickly as possible and commencing Phase 2 public consultation of the Pattullo Bridge Review later this spring. We apologize for any inconvenience.

This is perplexing, because it is so very wrong, and threatens the integrity of the consultation process that has been taking place for the last two years.

The purpose of the Pattullo Bridge Consultations, according to TransLink is to:

“review and evaluate alternatives to rehabilitate or replace the Pattullo Bridge, and to determine a preferred alternative that meets the needs of communities connected by the bridge, as well as the broader region served by the bridge.”

The last round of consultations took place in June of 2013, and TransLink brought to our communities a list of 25 options, ranging from complete removal of the bridge to a myriad of refurbishment, twinning, replacement, and relocation options. They had already “shortlisted” 6 options as meeting their declared objectives and warranting more discussion. They were sent back to their Sapperton Offices with comments (including some strong opinions that a few of the “not-recommended” options might require some re-consideration), presumably to apply some engineering and costing to the options to further evaluate their suitability.

At the time, they promised to be back in New Westminster in October 2013 with a refined list of alternatives, and for a preferred alternative to be offered in January 2014.

We are still waiting for that first meeting. Delays happen, I recognize. Some of the delay may be the fault of New Westminster asking for more time to work within the Master Transportation Planning framework, the group has sought further input from Coquitlam about alternate locations, and TransLink has been, for lack of a better word, distracted of late.

However, I encourage you to look at this diagram from the 2013 consultations:

See the pointy bottom of that pyramid? That is where, after extensive study and consultation, the alternative that “best meets community and regional needs” has been determined. Right below it is the next step: “review in context of other transportation priorities for investment and funding”. That sounds an awful lot like reviewing “how options for this project will fit into the regional plan”, which is what we are now awaiting before consultation can come back to the City.

Somehow, the Pyramid got mixed up.

I am disappointed, because I know what was coming to us for consultation, and it was exactly what we might expect coming out of the earlier consultations: the 6 options that were shortlisted in the earlier phase, with three of them eliminated from further analysis:

Gone: the rehabilitated 3-lane bridge, the rehabilitated 4-lane bridge, and the Coquitlam alternative.

Remaining: a new 4 lane bridge in the same spot, a 5 lane bridge with the outside lanes connecting directly to the SFPR, and a 6 lane bridge with the outside lanes connected directly to the SFPR and including some local road widening in New West.There are rumours of an extremely unlikely tunnel under Royal Ave.

The plans were completed enough that they were presented to the City of Surrey’s Transportation Committee this week and tweeted out by various participants.

If we know the plans, if the detailed engineering analysis we have waited 7 months for has been done, if information has already been leaked out, if the rooms are already booked, why, at the 11th hour is TransLink changing the consultation game? How does this help the credibility of an organization that (in my opinion) does great work with limited resources but is suffering a bit in the public relations department right now, and has done and excellent job (after a rocky start) at making this consultation process public, open, accessible, and accountable?

The future of the Pattullo Bridge is the single most important transportation issue in New Westminster today. Every other transportation issue from truck traffic overload to pedestrian safety is related to it. The Pattullo’s future will impact how and where our City will grow, and how we will apply our Master Transportation Plan to continue to develop one of the most “alternative-mode friendly” Cities in the region. Delaying these decisions does a disservice to the City TransLink now calls home.

Lets get on with it.

Truck Routes Open House

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I have been a little busy of late, sorry to be not updating this blog as often as I would like. It’s not like there aren’t many things going on, just too many to write about them in full!

I do want to make mention of the well-attended (even crowded) Open House last week at City Hall. The topic was proposed changes to the City’s truck routes maps. This comes on the heels of two related media storms. Well, media dust devils at least.

First was the release of preliminary traffic count data that shows a spike in vehicle traffic through New Westminster concomitant with the tolling of the Port Mann Bridge. That this is happening was a surprise to no-one who lives or works in New Westminster, but the Ministry of Transportation at first suggested it was just our imagination. Then the Minister suggested that increased traffic was a result of a boom in the economy. This lead to the unintentionally hilarious suggestion that New Westminster’s economy must have grown by 10% over the last year, for the increase of traffic we are seeing.

That the Ministry of Transportation finds it surprising that people are avoiding tolls should concern all of us. Not only does this reflect the findings of transportation engineers world-wide, the same Ministry of Transportation went so far as to install signs instructing people on the best way to avoid tolls, and have established a policy that assures toll avoidance will always be an option.

The second part of this story is the increased voice of individual people in New Westminster who are being impacted by this increase in traffic- especially the impact of increased commercial truck traffic. A Facebook campaign called “Rattled about Traffic” has grown out of Queens Park, and the topic of the increased traffic is being discussed at the Queens Park, Brow of the Hill, Massey Victory Heights, Downtown and Glenbrooke North Residents’ Association meetings over the previous month.

Always a little punchy about traffic (being a City inundated by vehicles that have no origin or destination here), New West is once again getting loud about the issue.

The overall-traffic-volume half of this equation is going to come up during Pattullo Bridge consultations starting next week, but I want to address today’s pressing issue: the open house that hoped to address the too-many-trucks side of the equation.

The changes proposed by the City are very modest. They comprise the removal of truck route designation from three stretches that are currently only truck routes between 7am and 9pm): the length of Royal Avenue; East Columbia Street through Sapperton; 8th Avenue between East Columbia and Braid; and an appendix-like extension at the east end of Ewen Ave in Queensborough. The other truck routes around the periphery of the City will remain intact.

Here is a before-and-after map of the changes:

Click to make bigger. Orange are designated Truck Routes today, and
dotted lines are the routes proposed for removal from the designation. 

The biggest effect of these changes is not visible on the map, but will be in truck access to the Pattullo Bridge.

East-bound vehicles from Stewardson will simply no longer be able to access the Pattullo. These vehicles will now be required to use the Queensborough Bridge (presuming, of course, that they didn’t come from there) and the Alex Fraser to access the new South Fraser Perimeter Road to get to the Bridgeview area of Surrey (which was the rationale for building the SFPR in the first place). Alternately, trucks from Marine Drive can access the Pattullo by using Southridge Drive, 10th Avenue, and McBride, although modeling and surveys by the City suggest this would not become the preferred route.

Vehicles arriving westbound from Highway 1 or Lougheed would only be able to access the Pattullo via Columbia and the loop in Albert Crescent Park. That loop is currently closed during rush hour due to congestion and safety issues where it merges with traffic on the north foot of the Pattullo (although the City has agreed to work with TransLink to address this issue). This connection could be avoided by sending the eastbound trucks to Front Street and the Queensborough, and westbound trucks to the Port Mann (a connection made much easier if, as Councilor Puchmayr is apt to point out, the Ministry had thought to connect the SFPR to the Port Mann).

Similarly, trucks entering the City from the Pattullo will be limited to travelling north on McBride or turning east on Columbia. They would need to use an alternate route to get to Marine Drive east of New Westminster: the SFPR-Alex Fraser-Queensbrorough route, or the McBride-10th Ave-Southridge Drive Route.

Note this important point: these changes will make no difference to anyone delivering or picking up goods in New Westminster: the proverbial “head of lettuce in Safeway” that the trucking industry always talks about. Trucks having legitimate business in New Westminster have always, and will continue to, use non-truck routes like 6th Street and 12th Street, and will continue to be able to use Royal Ave to bring your lettuce to one of the 17 Save-on-Foods outlets planned for New Westminster. For a similar reason the changes on Ewen Ave. will make no difference to anyone, as that vestigial truck route isn’t a “through route” to anywhere, but just provides access to a few businesses from Derwent Way.

Overall, this looks good. It reduces the impact on the Sapperton business district, and improves safety and livability on residential portions of 8th Ave and Royal. It should also reduce the incentive for some truckers to use to the Pattullo in an effort to avoid tolls, sticking more of them on the SFPR or the expanded Highway 1 where they should be.

If you support these changes, it is important that you let City Council know. THIS WEEK. There is a reason they are gauging public support at this time.

The process to remove trucks routes is a bit complicated, the City can’t just go out there and slap up some signs. They have to apply to TransLink to have the designation removed. Since TransLink is charged with the responsibility of regional goods movement, they have a say on what is and is not a Truck Route. In exchange for allowing truck routes on City owned streets, TransLink provides road maintenance funding through the “Major Road Network”. This $100 Million expense is one of those things TransLink does that few seem to notice when all this talk of a “Transit Referendum” takes place.

So when the City goes to TransLink to explain why Truck Route designation should be removed from these routes, as minor as they are, they will need to provide a rationale, expressions of public support, and some detailed modelling of the impact on the entire transportation network. It isn’t a slam dunk, so the City could use a healthy amount of feedback from the citizens impacted by these routes to bolster their case.

You have to Friday to go to the City site and provide your feedback to the City. You can do it all on-line.

See the entire Presentation here.

Then go Here and fill out the survey.

Go. Now.

The $1 Toll – Updated!

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 8 Comments.

When the media start talking about bridges and roads and transit and referenda and all the stuff that is rolled into the Lower Mainland and BC’s plan to move people about, there is a common theme that arises. Go to any recent on-line story about these subjects, and someone will inevitably comment that the “solution” is to toll all of the bridges equally, the number usually proffered is $1 per bridge. This is suggested as being more “fair” than just putting these more expensive tolls ($3-$4) on the newer bridges.

That usually gets shouted down in the comments when someone else comes along and says any toll at all is a “cash grab” and there is no way a piece of infrastructure should be paid for by the people who use it, and the comment thread goes from there.

 Example, Example, Example.

 There is rarely any deeper analysis of that first idea. What happens if we toll all the major bridges at $1 a crossing? What problem does this “fair” solution solve?

First we need to define our terms. When people talk about tolling “all the bridges”, they surely don’t mean the bridge on Gaglardi Way that spans the Brunette River or the King Edward Overpass, but they likely would include the two North Shore crossings and the major crossings of the Fraser (Golden Ears, Port Mann, Pattullo, Alex Fraser, and Massey). Ambitious tollers might include the Pitt River and the Knight, and really, you couldn’t do the Knight without doing the Oak and Laing as well (lets assume the Queensborough is spared, as it is really an access to the Alex Fraser or one of the other crossings)

 Seeing as how the False Creek bridges (Cambie, Granville, and Burrard) belong to the City of Vancouver, and the Middle Arm bridges (Moray, No. 2 Road, Dinsmore, and Sea Island) to the City of Richmond, it is pretty unlikely they could be included in any regional tolling scheme.

This raises an interesting jurisdictional issue, especially around Richmond. Most of the bridges belong to the BC Ministry of Transportation, so tolling could be accomplished with a wave of a Minister’s hand, but three (Golden Ears, Pattullo, and Knight) belong to TransLink, and the Laing belongs to YVR, so some interesting revenue-sharing complications would ensue.

But let’s put those complications aside for a moment, and look purely at the revenue side. Traffic counts for most of those bridges are available from the MoTI website, and it took only a bit of digging to find the numbers for the rest. Let’s use 2012 traffic numbers, as they are the most recent available and complete. Here is the average daily vehicle count on the bridges:

 Bridge           Operator    Daily Vehicles
Golden Ears   TransLink     30,000
Port Mann     TI Group     110,047
Pattullo         TransLink     65,000
Alex Fraser    MoTI           105,108
Massey          MoTI             81,729
Lions Gate    MoTI             60,285
Ironworkers  MoTI           115,331
Pitt River      MoTI             80,000
Laing             YVR              70,000
Oak               MoTI             68,150
Knight           TransLink     90,000
                     Total:          875,650

 So if you slapped a $1 toll on all 8 “major” bridges (including the Pitt River), you are looking at $650,000 per day in revenue, 365 days a year. Add the jurisdictionally-problematic North Arm bridges between Richmond and Vancouver and that number boosts to $876,000. Annually, this works out to just under $240 Million and $320 Million per year.

Wow, that’s a lot of money. Except two of those bridges already collect tolls ranging from $2.50 to $9.00, depending on the vehicle type. Although neither bridge is yet reaching its “revenue goal”, the amount of toll revenue promised the contractor at Port Mann is about $184 Million, and for the Golden Ears, $38 Million. Assuming that TransLink and the Ministry could somehow break these long-term contracts, we would need to remove this $222 Million from our net increase in revenue, bringing it down to less than $100 Million. Let’s ignore, for the benefit of the argument, the cost of setting up and running all of these tolling locations.

To put that $100 Million into perspective, TransLink collects $450 Million in fare revenue every year from people riding public transit, which is about a third of its annual $1,400 Million operational budget. The tolling revenue at $1 per car only represents about 7% of the TransLink operational budget: hardly enough to fund even the most modest growth of the transit system.

 The fairness or palatability of $1 tolls on all bridges seems less relevant when you realize it will hardly make a dent in the money we need in this region to build a reliable transit system, never mind building more bridges and lanes of highways (upwards towards 3,700km of new roads!) that will be required to support the region’s growth if we don’t build a more robust transit system.

This is why municipalities with region-wide bridge-tolling policies, like San Francisco or New York, are charging $5- $15 to use the bridges. If we are going to talk about a “fair toll on all bridges”, it most certainly won’t be $1. The numbers don’t work.

Update:
Despite the positive response I got for doing a little bit of basic math with publicly-available data, I was not surprised to hear the “$1 Toll Everywhere” suggested again as the panacea to TransLink funding on the CBC “Early Edition” this morning. This was only shocking because it was being put out by Colin Hansen (the man who brought us the HST debacle, and should know a little about referenda), only to be immediately supported by Moe Sihota. Neither stopped to think if a “toll under a dollar” was going to actually generate any meaningful revenue.
Alas, that is the state of political journalism in 2014. A series of he-said she-said talking point arguments, no-one doing basic fact-checking.
Regional Transportation rabble-rouser Eric Doherty on another forum asked an important question in relation to the “$1 Toll Everywhere” Plan: What does it cost to set up a toll collection system? Installing toll collection infrastructure on 11 bridges, and the bureaucracy to run it, would surely cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and would cost tens of millions a year to operate. If it takes three years to pay off the toll collection system, and another 20% of our $1 Toll is lost to overhead- the net revenue numbers get even worse.



Larco, Rails, and the Waterfront Vision.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 3 Comments.
I am cognizant that things are preliminary and there are many details yet to work out, but my initial reaction to this is very positive.
The Larco Property has been, for a few years, the missing front tooth in the smile of New Westminster’s waterfront. For those not paying attention, this is the lot between the Fraser River Discover Centre (FRDC) and the New Westminster Pier Park – the big pay parking lot at the end of Begbie Street. The development of Larco has been an on-again-off-again affair, but the last time we saw approved plans for the site, it was, to borrow a phrase commonly used in ironic understatement by my old sedimentology Prof: “sub-optimal”.
The plan was for 5 tall, thick towers on a pedestal of parking, rather the same as Plaza88 but 66% larger. It was out of scale with the surroundings, and threatened to create a permanent barrier separating Downtown from the waterfront, and burying Front Street for all time. As a trade-off, the plan was to bury a few hundred metres of a new freeway – the now-defunct North Fraser Perimeter Road (NFPR) – under the pedestal. Little regard was given to how this “traffic solution” would impact areas east or west of the Larco Property, but I don’t want to drift off on that story here…
With the establishment of the Pier Park, the cancelling of the NFPR, and new ideas around accommodating parking in Downtown in a post-Parkade era, the plans for Larco no longer really fit the bill, so the City asked Larco (who, in the City’s defense, had not acted for a decade on the previous plans) to go back to the drawing board and try to re-imagine the site through the lens of these new factors. It is what Larco brought back that has me (tacitly, with all the regular devil-in-the-details caveats) feeling pretty positive about the prospects for that site.

Sketch drawing, click to make bigger, or go the City site to look at the entire report.
The number and mass of the towers have been reduced. The new plans call for narrower towers with greater spacing, which should help preserve the view corridors down the important streets, and allow some sunlight to hit Columbia and Front streets. With some clever design, these towers might fit very nicely without feeling like a wall separating us from the river. The towers will vary in height (which further reduces the wall effect), but the tallest will be at least as high as the tallest at Plaza88). I’m not generally in favour of super-tall buildings on the waterfront, but if done well, not completely out of scale with the surrounding buildings, and lined up so not to block established view corridors, 3 towers will not overwhelm. Note that Larco is reducing the overall number of residences from over 1000 to around 800, which is something significant for a developer to give up, but will definitely allow the buildings to fit the site better.
The second big plus is that the development will allow expansion of the Pier Park to the west, and will feature a significant amount of public greenspace filling the gap between the FRDC and the Pier Park. This will no doubt come with access improvements to the east side of the park, but just by connecting the River Market/Quay to the Park more cohesively, the whole will exceed the sum of the parts. With longer-term plans to connect the Quay to Queensborough with a pedestrian bridge, and to connect the east end of the Park to Sapperton with a Greenway, we can now envision a future where New Westminster’s waterfront becomes a one of the greatest community amenities in the Lower Mainland- we will truly “Own the River” as the best place to spend some time on the banks of the muddy old Fraser.
The third (and perhaps most surprising) positive coming out of this plan is the disappearance of the parking structure. I don’t mean there will be no parking, I mean that Larco wants to build the “human space” at the same level as the bottom of the Pier Park, and stick the cars down under the pier. New construction techniques and tanking technology definitely allows this to be done safely, and with the entire breadth of the lot used for parking (and driveways and walkways above) there is enough room to build parking to the tower residents, and to have an extra public parking area to accommodate the FRDC, River Market and visitors to the Pier Park. The plan will not have several levels of above-ground parkade creating a garage tunnel effect we see on some other streets (I’m looking at you, Carnarvon!)
All of this had rightfully raised the same question among several people: what about the rails? Don’t we need to build overpasses? Won’t the whistles and bells and idling trains just cause more conflict? How will all these people rely on Begbie Street crossing?
These are serious concerns: both the need for level crossings vs. overpasses, and the issue of adjusting rail operations to deal with whistle cessation and reduced community impacts. Apparently, the City is working on them, and this is an area where serious work needs yet to be done. However, I will argue that complete separation may not be the best solution. (Unless the separation involves moving the rails, but I’m going to assume the Federal Government is not interested in spending any money moving goods by anything but truck, and this idea will never fly).
I don’t want multiple overpasses with elevated concrete flying over our streets. They are ugly, they are expensive to build and maintain, they act as obstacles to pedestrians, and (especially) people with disabilities. They loom over the human spaces below, create traffic barriers at times of emergency, and serve to actually separate us from the places they are meant to connect. Instead, we need to take a more rational approach to level crossings in New Westminster.
And we don’t need to re-invent the wheel here. We are not the only City in the world with industrial rail lines along a re-imagined post-industrial waterfront. We don’t even need to tax our imagination too hard to see  how it would work, we can just look around the world (thanks to Google Street View):
White Rock:

The Old Port area of Montreal: 

New Orleans:  

Or even dusty ol’ Peoria, Illinois:

 I’m just saying, if it plays in Peoria, you can’t tell me we cannot do it in New Westminster. We (and by “we”, I mean the railways and the governments that regulate them) just need to grow up.

Like or hate what you see? Go the the City’s Open house on Wednesday and give them a piece of your mind! 



Pattullo Consultation 2 – the options.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.
Now that the public consultation events have come to a close, and we have a week left to give TransLink our comments, I want to follow up my discussion of the Consultation Process with my reactions to the options provided.
So as to not bury the lede, and to allow for great summarizing and generalization, I am going to list the options provided by TransLink in the consultation documents grouped into four categories based completely on my own (as informed as possible) opinions: Optimal, Sub-optimal, Bad, and Untenable.
Optimal: If I was voting, this is where I would cast my ballot.
Options #4 and #5.
Fixing the bridge we have seems the simplest, most cost-effective solution, and it can easily be financed through a moderate toll, similar to the cost premium for crossing a “Zone” on any other TransLink infrastructure.These options (and I prefer the three-lane counterflow to provide better comfort and lower wear for road users) meets all of the listed objectives. It fixes the core problem (an old bridge) while respecting local and regional planning goals and existing transportation networks. Meanwhile, the historically significant structure can be preserved to grace our skyline for another generation, and safety for cyclists and pedestrians can be improved.
The bonus in these “difficult economic times” is that this is the least expensive option, and can easily be funded through modest tolls. Back-of-the-envelope estimates suggest that the $3 tolls of Port Mann are not necessary here, but a toll pegged to the zone-crossing premium of the adjacent SkyBridge (currently $1.25) would be more than enough to cover the repair and maintenance costs. The toll would be enough to disincentivize avoiding the Port Mann, but not so high as to be a burden to regular users. It may even help encourage the use of the alternative next door.
Sub-optimal: Not ideal, but I could probably live with it and not whinge too much. 
Options #2, #3, #19.
All pictures zoom if ya click them!

All of these options keep the Pattullo standing, and that satisfies one of my major criteria: protecting the heritage of the structure. Each is less perfect than the optimal choices in different ways.

The first two don’t seem to provide any real benefit over the Optimal choices. I cannot imagine this region spending $300 Million on a single piece of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure these days, when a bike lane in Vancouver that costs less to install than a single left-turn bay for cars on an adjacent street is used as evidence for a “war on cars”. This is politically untenable, and probably just disruptive enough to transportation systems already established that it doesn’t really serve the purpose. There is nothing a 2-lane Pattullo provides us better than three-lane Pattullo, so these are just lesser versions of a good idea.
Option #19 has been the source of much talk, speculation, dreaming, and idolation since the consultations began. I have never been a big fan of the Sapperton Bar crossing (for reasons outlined below), but have to admit, when I saw this option presented by TransLink, I started to reconsider, mostly because the speculated cost of $1.5 Billion is much, much lower than I anticipated for a crossing on one of the wider parts of the River. This makes the cost recoverable from tolls on the two bridges (the new one, and the refurbished 2-lane Pattullo).
The obvious upside is that his option may facilitate the closing of the Pattullo to trucks, and provide the most cost-effective solution to the problem that the “Stormont Solution” purports to solve: getting vehicles from Surrey to Highway 1 ASAP, at a fraction of the cost of a 4-km tunnel through New Westminster.
My problems with this option (besides suspicion around the projected cost) are built around the fear that this is really a “NIMBY” solution that, once again, adds to road capacity when that is not the problem we are trying to solve. Nothing in the problem set for the Pattullo supports building another bridge to the east. We also don’t know if the residents of Bridgeview or Coquitlam want this new Highway connection in their neighbourhoods. The connections on the north side are especially problematic- are we envisioning a road through the Brunette Industrial Area connecting at Braid (spanning the rail yard), or something over by the King Edward Overpass (which would be impossible to connect to Highway 1)? It was suggested that the projected cost of this option would only take the new bridge to United Boulevard, which is actually no-where, except a congested narrow 4-lane with access to Lee Valley.
Mark me down as intrigued, but not informed enough to actually feel positive about this one.
Bad: Just a bad idea, and hard to see how to make it good. 
Options #1, #6, #14, #15, #16, #17, #18, #20.

The first option here – the removal of the bridge – is a bit of a dream for some in New Westminster, but I think fails to acknowledge both the importance of the established transportation networks, and the importance of the Pattullo as a heritage structure. I like the bridge on our skyline, I like crossing it on foot and on my bike and even, occasionally, by car. I would be sad to see it go.

Option #6 is for a new 4-lane bridge, which has the unique combination of making the situation no better than it is now traffic- and transportation-wise, but losing the heritage structure at a much higher cost than the refurbishment option. So not individually terrible; just a combination of so many sub-optimals that the sum is bad.
#14, #15, #16 and #20 all rely on the Sapperton Bar crossing being built, which is actually a pretty crappy idea. It takes the Surrey-Coquitlam version (with all of it’s uncertainties) and adds a road connecting to a tunnel under Sapperton – for no apparent reason or understanding of the neighbourhoods it is launching into – to presumably access a non-existent (and un-budgeted) Stormont connection, yet still doubles the cost. I cannot imagine why.
#17 is lesser than #19, for not much less cost, except that we no longer have a Pattullo at all. Meh. Meanwhile #18 has the same critical flaw as #2 in that no-one is going to spend something like $300 million to refurbish the Pattullo for bicycles and pedestrians only in MetroVancouver in 2013 when we cannot even scrape together a couple of million to fix the BC Parkway. Give me $300 Million for bike infrastructure, I can spend it much better than this.
Untenable: They just threw these in here to see if we were paying attention.
Options #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #21, #22, #23, #24, and #25.

The first three options bring progressively bigger bridges into the location of the Pattullo Bridge. It was these ideas that brought us all out to last year’s consultations, and no defensible case was made for them last year, which is why we are all here a year later reviewing better ideas. This idea has not improved with age.

The four sub-river tunnel options are dead on arrival. Without the “branch”, and with no specific idea about what happens along McBride, it provides no advantage over the bigger Bridge options, but at 2-3 times the cost. With the “branch” along Royal, the cost rises well over $4 Billion (an unlikely sum for TransLink to cobble together), all to move one inevitable traffic pinch point from the South end of McBride to the North end of McBride, and to increase the congestion on Stewardson. It is a road-builders dream that spends a lot of taxpayers money but makes worse most of the problems it claims to solve. I’ve said it before: tunnels are for trains, not cars and trucks. 
#21 and #22 have all the bad parts of #14 through #20, but with increased traffic and cost.

The final 3 options are all related to a new crossing way over by “Tree Island” – a misnomer peninsula that currently hosts a steel wire factory and will soon be home to a TransLink bus parking facility – to connect Richmond to Burnaby. Richmond has been clear that they are opposed to this idea, and no-one at TransLink was really clear how this in any way related to the Pattullo Bridge – it surely does not replace any capacity needs at Pattullo, doesn’t directly address the “old bridge problem”, nor does it cross most of the Fraser River. This is so off topic, it is just a distraction not worth discussion.   

That’s it folks, this is what we have to work with. You have another week or so to get your opinions to TransLink by going to this site. Just for the fun of it, you can also tell Surrey what you think by going to this site.
Good luck.

Pattullo Consultation Redux

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Some were wondering what I was doing on Saturday, walking the sidewalks during Uptown Live and the Hyack Parade dressed as a bridge.

I was handing these out:

Yes, TransLink is coming back to New Westminster to talk some more about the future of the Pattullo Bridge. This is a new phase of consultation, no doubt timed to come right on the heels of the Provincial Election. This is actually good news, not something to lament.

Last time TransLink came around these parts talking about the Pattullo to the public, there were two reactions: Almost complete indifference from Surrey, and vociferous concern from New Westminster. The plan presented at that time were for a bridge that both increased the traffic load on New Westminster, while failing to acknowledge the importance of the existing structure to New Westminster’s historical and cultural landscape. The good news is that TransLink got the message, and decided to step back and re-evaluate its approach to the aging Pattullo.

Some people have asked the NWEP members if we are going to hold a “rally” related to these consultations, as we did last time. I cannot speak for the NWEP (Although there is a members meeting tomorrow night where this will no doubt be discussed), but I suspect that the answer will be no. At the successful rally last year, the NWEP and the citizens of New Westminster were asking for better idea: for TransLink to come back with a more comprehensive review of the options for the bridge, everything from replacement to moving it to refurbishing it to just removing it altogether. It appears that is what TransLink has done. Now is time for us, New Westminster, to show up at one or more of the Open House events being held in June and first listen – then think – then provide comment. Right now TransLink is listening, so there is no reason to shout. With this in mind, all I was doing on Saturday was telling people there will be meetings in June on the future of the Pattullo, and we want people to show up.

More information on the Meeting times and locations is available here.

Mark your calendars, there are actually 6 meetings (3 in New West, 3 in Surrey), and if the Surrey ones work better for you- attend those! Last time we did this, the Surrey meetings were sparsely attended, so it might be easier to bend some ears there than in New West. The most important thing is that you get out to one or more of the meetings and get your comments to TransLink. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, Participatory Democracy is those that show up.

Digging Deeper

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 3 Comments.

I love it when I agree with the people I am disagreeing with.

Chris Bryan, the Editor of the New West News Leader, is building a reputation for some compelling opinion pieces. This week, he definitely hit that mark with his column entitled “New Westminster’s traffic discussion must dig deeper” .  It is compelling because I can agree and disagree with almost every idea in the column.

The essential question (if Bryan will afford me the benefit of paraphrasing) is: “How long can New Westminster resist the paving over of our neighbourhoods to service the cities on our borders?”

My simple answer is as long as we are here. Because what is the alternative?

Yes, Surrey (pop 468,000) and Coquitlam (pop 126,000) would love it if New Westminster (pop 68,000) would get the hell out of the way and allow their residents to get from house to work or shops quicker. I would argue that is firmly in the category of “not our problem”.

Douglas Adams, in my second favorite piece of absurdist writing, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy discussed the idea of building freeways through people’s homes:

“Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are often given to wonder what’s so great about point A that so many people from point B are so keen to get there, and what’s so great about point B that so many people from point A are so keen to get there. They often wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell they wanted to be.”

This was just as relevant to Arthur Dent’s house and his planet, which were (spoiler alert) both destroyed to make way for bypasses, as it was to Jane Jacobs in Washington Square Park (spoiler alert) which she helped save along with the soul of Greenwich Village and New Westminster in 2013.

I’m not sure why we, in New Westminster, the first City in British Columbia, the former Capital of the Colony, and the original heart of the region, should give a rat’s ass what upstart suburbs like Coquitlam and Surrey need, now that they have built huge communities of sprawling auto-oriented neighbourhoods whose very economic survival relies on their expanding populace having an unfettered ability to drive through the New Westminster community – through our very neighbourhoods.

It isn’t our intractable resistance to plowing over our City that got them into this mess, it is their continued choice to develop on the assumption that we would eventually plow our City down to accommodate their needs.

Yes, The Strange Case of the Bailey Bridge is a great example of how New Westminster concerns itself with preserving its character and historic neighbourhoods instead of sacrificing everything we are to allow Coquitlam to build (to quote Chris Bryan) “a rapidly growing big-box retail area, and… the redevelopment of Fraser Mills into a residential community housing thousands of new drivers poorly served by transit.”

Perhaps a better example is the history of Braid Skytrain Station. Coquitlam was given the opportunity, back in the 1990s to have SkyTrain service to Maillardville. Fears of the “CrimeTrain” and density caused Coquitlam to resist rapid transit in their most historic neighbourhood, and the line and station were moved to more forward-thinking (and more historic) New Westminster.

By their own preference, Coquitlam instead got 8 lanes of Highway 1, and 6 horribly congested lanes of Lougheed Highway in Maillardville. They are now afraid that 7,500 people living in Fraser Mills will be the gigantic strawpile that breaks the back of their community. It may dump too many cars across their shiny new overpass into the traffic quagmire of their own (terrible) planning. A 4-lane Bailey Bridge and overpass looming over Sapperton will surely afford them some temporary relief, but only by pushing the traffic pinch point, idling pissed-off drivers and livability impacts a few hundred metres into New Westminster neighbourhoods.

These bad planning decisions were not made by New Westminster- in fact we were not even consulted on them. Why should we suddenly acquiesce to their unanticipated “needs”?

So Coquitlam is willing to finance the slow destruction of our 150-year-old City? Thanks, but no thanks. Their generous offer only makes us enablers.

Instead, New Westminster is taking the principled, responsible stand. We are leading the region in building a compact, transit-friendly, sustainable community. We are developing a Master Transportation Plan that builds on our current strength as the Municipality with the second-highest alternative transportation mode share in the Province (excuse the emphasis, but this is a pretty big point!). We are making it easier for people to live, work and shop in the same community. We are building mixed commercial-residential developments on SkyTrain lines. We are increasing density, and are taking risks building office space and investing in community amenities.

For those who must move across the region, we are making it easier to do so through transit, through cycling, through car-sharing. We are making genuine efforts to reduce our community’s load on Coquitlam and Surrey roads. The results are demonstrated in our region-leading alternative mode share, and we are aiming to do better!

So do we need to “dig deeper”? Hell yes. We all do. We are facing major growth, climate, and economic challenges. In New Westminster, that means we need to have cojones to say to our neighbours that their car-driving problems are a result of their poor planning, and we are terribly sorry, but you are not going to fill our community with pavement to solve them.

If Coquitlam wants to put 7,500 residents in Fraser Mills, they had better figure out a way to move them around that doesn’t include cars passing through Braid and Brunette.

If Surrey needs a billion dollars to expand rapid transit to serve their growing population, we will be the first to step up and advocate to senior governments on their behalf to get them the transit system of their dreams. But if they want to spend that billion dollars to expand a freeway bridge into the heart of our City, they will have a hell of a fight on their hands.

We are ready, Chris. We are ready to help the region move forward and fulfill its Regional Growth Strategy, its Regional Transportation Plans, its Sustainability Plans.

It may look to them like we are “dug in”, but we in New Westminster are actually leading. Maybe it is they who need to dig deeper.

Our New Motto?

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

There has been a little recent on-line and print chatter about the “Royal City” moniker. It seems to stem from an off-hand comment by noted New Westminster philanthropist and style maven Bob Rennie, who suggested if we want to sell more condominiums, we should update our image. Lose the “Royal City” and the Crown motif, and start fresh.

Our Mayor, never one to lack vision, suggested off-the-cuff that to some people in New Westminster, the idea of losing the “Royal City” might be considered blasphemy. And we are off to the races.

There have been letters to the editor, lots of on-line chatter, both sides of the issue have been discussed. The subsequent announcement of the Anvil Centre naming, a name that nods deeply to traditions, mixed with its appropriately-modern NFL-Helmet-ready swoopy logo only added fuel to the low smoulder. Fanned again by Councillor Cote’s recent post on a much better local blog than this one admitting to mixed feelings about the return of “swag lights” to Downtown New Westminster. Do these lights demonstrate an excitement and sense of place, or do they just evoke a historic time that ain’t coming back, and perhaps the money could be invested better elsewhere?

I was, up to now, a little ambivalent about these ideas. I like the “Royal City” moniker, although I am anything but a royalist. There is a tradition there worth preserving, and there are (to quote myself) ways that a clever marketer can bring excitement to the Royal City motto without evoking paisley wallpaper and tea sets. I don’t think it looks like Snoop Dog’s jewel-encrusted crown or Kate’s foetus, but I honestly don’t know what it looks like. Hey, I’m a scientist, not a marketing guy.

However, it occurred to me reading this week’s paper that our solution may be at hand. Our good friends at the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure have already provided us a handy new motto, and they are already splattering the new logo all over the roads South of the Fraser:

Artist’s rendition – I haven’t seen the actual signs.

Goodbye “Royal City”. Hello “Toll-Free Alternative”.

That’s right, we think of New Westminster as a community where we live, work and play, where we raise our kids, do our shopping, go to the park, and spend our idle time polishing our crown motifs and complaining about the Socialists. The Ministry of Transportation sees New Westminster as a place where drivers who don’t wish to pay for use of the $3.3 Billion bridge they were all clamoring for can instead zoom along surface streets, past our residential driveways and through our school zones! We have arrived! .

Think of all the tag lines opportunities:

“400,000 drivers a day can’t be wrong!”
“Stay for the stop lights – then please move along”
“Our pedestrians may be slow, but at least they’re soft!”
“Don’t have $3 for a toll? We have dollar stores!”
“If you lived here, you’d enjoy this traffic all day!”
“We put the ‘rough’ in Thoroughfare!”

Again… maybe I just don’t get marketing.

UPDATE: Astute reader and man-about-town Jeremy pointed out to me that “Royal City” isn’t really a motto, it is more of a nickname. You should take all of those times above where I misuse “motto” and stick in “moniker” or “nickname” or some such word. I would do it, but I’m lazy, and busy, and tired from a hard curling weekend.  

This is vitally important because the City already has an official big-M Motto right there on its Wikipedia page: “In God we Trust”. And there’s nothing dated or old fashioned about that!