The results of a phone survey conducted by Kennedy Stewart, MP of the Burnaby-Douglas riding where the proposed gondola to SFU would be built, has been released. The results of the mail-in survey have not been released yet. The full press release is below:
NOVEMBER 2, 2011
BURNABY MOUNTAIN GONDOLA DOES NOT HAVE FULL SUPPORT OF LOCAL RESIDENTS
MP Kennedy Stewart wants better plan from Translink
BURNABY, BC – A telephone survey completed by over 1000 local residents conducted by Burnaby-Douglas MP Kennedy Stewart shows only 47% support Translink’s plan to construct a gondola from the Production Way Skytrain Station to SFU’s Burnaby Mountain Campus. 39% oppose the plan while 14% are undecided.
Stewart says, “During the May 2011 election campaign I committed to consult with the public about the gondola project. These survey results indicate that while the gondola has considerable support, Translink will have to present a better plan if they hope to gain widespread backing for the project. While the plan has merits, many people I spoke to while door-knocking within the affected neighbourhoods are very concerned about the costs of the project, and how it might impact the environment and their quality of life.”
Conducted for Stewart by Direct Leap Technologies Incorporated, 5,831 households were contacted by phone in the area bounded by Duthie Road, North Road, Lougheed Highway, and Burrard Inlet.
Stewart was elected to the riding of Burnaby-Douglas for the New Democratic Party in May 2011. He is the Official Opposition Critic for Western Economic Diversification, Associate Natural Resources Critic for Western Canada and member of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. Kennedy holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and is a tenured associate professor on leave from Simon Fraser University’s School of Public Policy.
For more information, please contact:
Jaclyn Moneypenny, Office of Kennedy Stewart, 613-996-5597 or kennedy.stewart.a2@parl.gc.ca
More information on the gondola:
Translink: http://www.translink.ca/en/Be-Part-of-the-Plan/Studies/Burnaby-Mountain-Gondola.aspx
No Gondola: http://www.nogondola.org
Forty-seven per cent support is distinctly underwhelming, considering the survey area included SFU and UniverCity, where you might expect support would be the highest. It looks like TransLink still has a lot of work to do to persuade area residents that the gondola would be a good thing. This can’t be good news for gondola proponents.
[...] Gondola team over at No Gondola continues their creative reporting of facts in a recent post titled Burnaby Mountain Gondola Does Not Have Full Support of Local Residents. While the headline itself is correct, it’s highly misleading. Firstly, the survey they are [...]
FYI – Citizens Opposed to the Gondola did not write the post title. It was the title of the press release by Kennedy Stewart:
http://kennedystewart.ndp.ca/post/majority-of-local-residents-do-not-support-burnaby-mountain-gondola
While we agree that the majority of residents don’t actually support the gondola, criticizing us for the title of the article is not justified.
So more locals support it than don’t, but that isn’t good enough for you?
And what about the people not directly local residents, but from the wider Vancouver metro area who would in their travels like to use it? They don’t count in your crazy citizen calculus?
Cathy: not only is the result of the survey not good enough for us, it also wouldn’t be enough support to approve this proposal in a referendum on the proposal if one was ever conducted.
As for the people that are not direct local residents, they would also be on the hook for the $120+ million project, even though most of them wouldn’t even use the gondola. Lastly, this survey was conducted by the MP of the Burnaby-Double riding, not by nogondola.org/COG, as you seem to think.
A February, 2011 article in Burnaby Now http://www.burnabynow.com/Would+single+rider+rail+cars+work+transit/4219169/story.html described an alternative to the gondola that not only followed existing streets (no peeping Toms or disrupted view-lines), it could also be installed quicker, and (best of all!) operated entirely as a private venture – meaning not a dime of public money.
I would also point out that the BNow headline “Would Single Rider Rail Cars Work…?” was highly misleading — and likely why no one — including NoGondola, which doesn’t even list it as a news item — took it seriously. In actual fact, the concept utilizes compact 2-5 person sub-compact car-sized ‘pods’. It can also operate 25/7 and carry many times the capacity of the proposed gondola.
For more, including the company’s proposal to Translink (which treats it like it doesn’t exist), check http://www.mist-er.com/home-page.html