Christine Allen wrote to the Peace Arch News asking that people caught in a ‘no bus zone’ in South Surrey be given a break by TransLink.
She was stunned to learn – the same day her letter was published (Feb. 7) – that her issue is to be addressed with a new bus route that will begin connecting Grandview Heights and the Campbell Heights business park with both White Rock and Langley in late April.
“I sent the letter to TransLink, and the City of Surrey and the mayor (Dianne Watts) and anyone else I could think of,” she said, adding the most she’d hoped for was raising awareness of a long-standing issue.
Allen – who wrote contrasting the $1.4 billion TransLink is projected to spend on the Evergreen Line in Coquitlam with a lack of bus service to the newly populous area south of Highway 10 and east of Highway 99 – said she wasn’t expecting the direct response she received from the City of Surrey.
Transportation planner Don Buchanan emailed her back to say the city has been advocating with TransLink for new services for residents, and giving details of the new bus service, in the middle of the ‘no bus zone’ she referred to.
According to Buchanan, the new route will run from central White Rock up 152 Street, then east on 24 Avenue to 192 Street, where it will travel north to 32 Avenue, then east to 200 Street and north to the Langley Centre exchange.
TransLink representatives did not respond to requests for confirmation of the route by press time.
Ironically Allen, a Peninsula resident since 1975, doesn’t live in the ‘no bus zone.’
“But I have friends in that area and it’s been frustrating,” she said. “When my kids were younger, I was driving them there all the time, and to get to Langley, where they have friends, would take close to two hours by bus with transfers.
“It seems silly, when they’re getting the Evergreen Line in Coquitlam, you look at the transportation maps for down here and there are big black holes.”
She described the new route as “a good start,” but one that will not solve all transportation problems in the area. Service to 32 and 16 avenues is still limited, she said.
“And there a lot of people living on 20 Avenue for whom it’ll be a hike up to 24 Avenue.”
She said extensive service to 24 Avenue has been a long time coming.
This is not the first time one of her letters has seemed to obtain speedy results, Allen noted with a chuckle.
“I wrote a letter two years ago about the fact there were no buses to Grandview Centre, and, sure enough, two weeks later there was an announcement buses were coming there,” she said. “What else should I write about?”