Letter Sent To Kevin Falcon

It was announced today that the incompetent, unaccountable political body known as Translink, will be restructured by year's end. You can read more about this here. Soon after I heard Burnaby's communist mayor, Derek Corrigan, speaking out against it and threatening BC Transportation Minister, Kevin Falcon, with a "popular revolt". Anytime Corrigan is against something, I know it's a good idea! I felt compelled to write the minister:

Dear Mr. Falcon:

Last year I was one of several hundred professional engineers who attended a presentation you made at the Plaza 500 Hotel at 12th & Cambie. You may recall that one engineer asked a simple question: "Will there ever come a time when there will be some transportation experts on the Translink board?" Only an engineer could ask something so obvious, so logical.

Now that you have made a change in this direction, the usual suspects are railing against it. Though I can't obviously speak for all engineers, I'd think that the vast majority of them would share my sentiments: Well Done and Long Overdue!!!

Right now I'm actually down in Miami, Florida. I've had the opportunity to take a close look at their extremely limited transit system. Parts of it are free and yet so few people ride it. There is tremendous resistance amongst car-crazy South Floridians to support intelligent transportation options. The result is bumper-to-bumper traffic from sunrise to sunset, 7 days a week. Ughhh.

So good on you for what you're attempting to do. Stand your ground, stare your opponents in the eye, and ask those opponents why on earth they wouldn't want transportation experts helping with the decisions!!

Sincerely,

Robert Werner, P.Eng.