Langley Township’s new push for TransLink to bring bus service to Gloucester Industrial Estates is drawing praise from the community’s largest business organization.
The Greater Langley Chamber of Commerce announced it is welcoming a new round of advocacy for getting public transit to the industrial park in northeast Langley.
“We’re surveyed, met with, and spoken to many of the businesses in Gloucester, and almost to a person they tell us that this is a significant barrier to hiring and retaining employees,” said chamber CEO Cory Redekop. “Effectively, we’re telling anyone without a personal vehicle that they need not apply to work in the area – and that’s excluding youth, newcomers, people with disabilities, and anyone who doesn’t own their own car, which is unacceptable.”
Redekop said there are about 200 businesses in Gloucester, with about 12,000 employees.
He shared quotes from some recent responses to a chamber survey of Gloucester businesses on the lack of transit:
“We have had many people apply and be selected for an interview only to realize after that they cannot accept an interview as there is no transit.”
“We recently went through a round of hiring; two qualified candidates backed out after they realized there was no public transport in this area”
“We lose about 50 per cent of applicants on initial screening upon knowing about our exact location and transit inaccessibility.”
“The closest bus stop for me is a 47 min. walk which is 100 per cent unwalkable as it is a highway, or a $25 taxi ride.”
Businesses and several successive Township mayors and councils have lobbied TransLink for well over a decade for bus service to the area, but TransLink has never run a line to the site.
Gloucester is located northeast of the 264th Street highway interchange. It has steadily expanded since the 1980s, after being rezoned for industrial use in the late 1970s.
Redekop noted that the area is continuing to expand – the Township recently approved the addition of some new lots along 56th Avenue to the industrial estate – and that industrial land is still in short supply in Metro Vancouver.
In addition to lobbying TransLink, the motion passed at Monday’s meeting called for TransLink to exempt the area from its transit taxes if it can’t or won’t provide service, with BC Transit doing the job.
The Gloucester site runs up to the Langley-Abbotsford border. East of Langley, in the Fraser Valley, BC Transit provides bus service.
The only councillor to vote against the motion, Coun. Kim Richter, questioned whether that’s feasible.
“I don’t believe that we legally can do that,” she said.
READ MORE: Bring buses to Gloucester or give up TransLink taes: Langley mayor