James Crosty: meet with neighbours to find solutions

The Record asked readers what they think the top election issues are in the city. Top pick: Truck traffic. Reporter Theresa McManus asks the mayoral candidates what can, or cannot, be done about truck traffic in the city. Here’s what they said:

Convening a meeting of politicians from New Westminster’s neighbouring cities is one of James Crosty’s priorities if elected mayor.

Crosty believes New Westminster politicos need to have better communication with their peers in neighbouring cities to better address truck traffic and congestion on local roads.

“I want more consultation with political stakeholders, not staff. I will convene that meeting within six months of being elected if they will all agree to join. We will sit down and we will all explain our turf wars, as it were, and we will come back to the table again and discuss the opportunities to resolve the issues,” he said. “We need to have this dialogue. We can’t sit down and create a master transportation plan in a vacuum.”

According to Crosty, New Westminster consulted with neighbouring cities when creating its master transportation plan but ultimately included what it wanted. He believes the plan “is lacking” as it doesn’t adequately address traffic pressures that will arise from future developments at Sapperton Green or around the 22nd Street SkyTrain station.

“Then they talk about tunnels. Well who is the guy who was talking about tunnels last election?” he said. “I got sideswiped about talking about tunnels, period. Now it is in the master transportation plan.”

While the master transportation plan cites the possibility of creating a tunnel that would take traffic from the Queensborough Bridge/Marine Way through the city to Highway 1 near Brunette avenue, Crosty has long believed that the Stormont connector would help alleviate truck traffic on city streets, by taking vehicles from the Pattullo Bridge to Highway 1.

“I still maintain that Stormont is the missing link,” he said.

At one time, transportation plans proposed the construction of the Stormont-McBride Connector to take traffic from the intersection of 10th Avenue and McBride Boulevard to the Cariboo interchange on Highway 1.

While Burnaby hasn’t expressed a desire to proceed with construction of the Stormont connector, Crosty believes that could change.

“Crosty said the roundtable discussion with politicians – not city staff – from neighbouring cities would help open the lines of communication needed to deal with issues like truck traffic.

“It’s about trucks but it’s also about how we get along with our neighbours,” he said.

Crosty believes good ideas and compromise solutions about addressing traffic will come out of discussions with New Westminster’s neighbours and city residents. He also thinks residents need to be brought into the conversation.

“The whole point about what we have done as a city has done nothing to solve this issue. We have created this negative impression about New Westminster that is whining and complaining about traffic,” he said.