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TRI-CITY CYCLING ADVOCATES SAY PLANS TO ACCOMMODATE BIKES ON THE EVERGREEN LINE DON’T ADD UP: SEE PAGE 5
THE WEDNESDAY
2010 WINNER
AUG. 24, 2011 www.tricitynews.com
TRI-CITY NEWS Daytripping: White Rock
Bright Young Thing
SEE LIFE, PAGE 14
SEE ARTS, PAGE 26
INSIDE Tom Fletcher/10 Letters/11 Sign Me Up/20 Sports/30
Bad news, good news for transit TransLink can’t expand to keep pace with soaring ridership without more funding By Jeff Nagel BLACK PRESS
JAMES MACLENNAN/THE TRI-CITY NEWS
TransLink is on track for a record year of transit ridership, surpassing even the number of passengers carried in 2010, when the region hosted the Olympics. But the high usage numbers are being tempered with a caution that the transportation authority is near the limit of what it can offer riders and needs a big and controversial package of upgrades if it’s to expand service and keep pace with rising demand. The 114.4 million transit trips in the first six months of the year are 4% more than in 2010. And if the April-to-June period is compared — to exclude the Olympic surge — ridership was up 13% in the second quarter. Officials warn the gains are not sustainable if the public and regional politicians refuse to accept some combination of higher taxes and fees to finance expansion.
Thousands of car enthusiasts and summer strollers took advantage of a hot day to flood the streets of downtown Port Coquitlam for the seventh annual PoCo Business Improvement Association Car Show. The event showcased more than 200 classic cars. For more photos, see page 13.
see TOO OO LITTLE CAPACITY, C C , page g 12
Local politicians mourn NDP leader Layton
IN QUOTES
“He was full of energy and full of fun.” Dawn Black
By Janis Warren THE TRI-CITY NEWS
JACK LAYTON
The last time Dawn Black saw her former boss in person was at the federal NDP convention in June, a gathering in Vancouver to mark the party’s 50th year. Jack Layton had asked his ex-defence critic and the former New Westminster-Coquitlam MP to toast Ed Broadbent on stage and Black
said she was more than happy to oblige. The pair had dinner during the convention “and if you could’ve seen him, there was no clue that he was about to face death,” she said yesterday. “He was full of energy and full of fun.” Layton, the NDP leader whom Black described as “eternally optimistic,” who was responsible for the so-called Orange Crush that wiped out most of the Liberal seats dur-
ing the federal election earlier this year and who saw his party rise to official opposition status, died of cancer at his Toronto home on Monday. He was 61. NDP MP Fin Donnelly, who replaced Black, said Layton played a major role in getting him to jump into national politics. The two shared many things, he said. see MOORE REMEMBERS REMEMBERS,, page 3