By: Niveja Assalaarachchi, News Writer
Surrey is the Lower Mainland’s fastest-growing city and is expected to surpass Vancouver in population by 2038. Considering this growth, the organization Movement: Metro Vancouver Riders recently released a report highlighting their vision for the future of transit in Surrey.
Movement “empowers transit riders across Metro Vancouver by giving [the] community a strong, unified voice.” Their proposal advocates for three main things: new bus routes for faster and more direct local and regional trips, investments in bus exchanges and bus-priority roads to expand Surrey’s bus infrastructure, and improved pedestrian infrastructure, including new sidewalks and bus shelters.
The Peak spoke with Ahasan Bhuiyan, an SFU engineering student and organizer for Movement involved in the coordination of the report, for more insight. Bhuiyan outlined the plan’s vision, noting that while TransLink and the city were developing their transit plan, they did not focus on riders’ demands enough. So, Movement created their own plan with input from Surrey transit riders through a survey.
Bhuiyan noted that the organization was in discussions with TransLink to theorize how Movement’s community-engaged plan could be implemented. He explained that Surrey residents often have lower engagement rates in transit planning as compared to other municipalities, hypothesizing that factors like language barriers could be a reason for this.
Bhuiyan said Movement had previously assisted TransLink in developing the South of Fraser East Area Transit Plan, which had looked at transit development across Surrey, Langley, and other jurisdictions.
One of the plan’s main goals is to improve transit connectivity in Surrey by creating new bus corridors that cross the municipality north to south and east to west. Bhuiyan spoke to the difficulty Surrey transit riders have in commuting in the city,
saying the system “is very good if you live in Surrey and you want to go to Vancouver for your work, and then you come back home in the evening. But as we mentioned in the report, it’s not particularly good for movement within Surrey.”
“The existing public transit system in Surrey is very good if you live in Surrey and you want to go to Vancouver for your work, and then you come back home in the evening. But as we mentioned in the report, it’s not particularly good for movement within Surrey.”
— Ahasan Bhuiyan, organizer at Movement
The report also specifically examines transit connections from the rest of the Lower Mainland into Surrey. Bhuiyan pointed out that Surrey residents often have to take 3–4 transfers onto other bus routes to get to different parts of Metro Vancouver. To this end, the plan proposes adding new regional bus routes, which would connect areas like Tsawwassen, Ladner, and Coquitlam directly to Surrey, and other areas in the Fraser Valley.
