Course talk:GEOG350/Archive/2010WT1/Surrey
Background With an estimated population of over 446,000 people (BC stats), Surrey is currently the second largest city in the province and 12th overall in Canada. Surrey has six town centres including Guilford, Fleetwood, Newton, South Surrey, Whalley and Cloverdale. Surrey spans 317.19 square kilmometres and is located east of Vancouver City centre. Surrey’s city centre is concentrated in the community of Whalley.
Geographically, Surrey is known for its expansive park space and is recognized as having more green space per capita than any other community in the Metro Vancouver area. Surrey is also home to agricultural land, beaches, business and commercial developments,including a highly dense city centre, and residential neighbourhoods. Surrey is a major urban centre south of the Fraser River and has a well travelled trucking route. With an increased population by 40% in the last six years, Surrey has recognized the need to increase family housing developments in residential areas while improving the transit system to cater to commuters in the area. While immigration continues to increase in Surrey, particularly from South Asian communities, there is demand for multiple family housing as well. Currently, 70% of Surrey's housing is for single unit housing. Economic growth has been a positive outcome of the growing population, resulting in an increase in employment rate. Historically, Surrey's growth stems from the fact that it is a major recipient of post-war suburbanization. This accounted for almost 30% of the population growth. In the past 6 years, the population of Surrey has increased by 40%.
Commuting within and from Surrey has increased sharply in recent years. Within Surrey, work trip flows are highly dispersed. Due to the several town centers, each with its own commercial and residential development, it may be necessary for citizens to go to various parts of the city simply to just go to and from work from their homes. Only 13% of such trips are done on public transit, compared to 26% of the time in Vancouver. Public transit service is focused from the Scott Road Skytrain station, but 1/3 of all commutes within the city begin and end at one of the 6 town centers. Surrey’s plan to promote transit use is to encourage denser development in the town centers to prevent sprawl and focus the population where it is more easily served by transit. However, this calls for densities to range from 30 - 300 unites per hectare, compared to an average of 10 units/hectare, which can be seen in the typical single family area of the city.
Issue
Public transportation with Surrey and its need for improvements is detrimental in keeping up with its growing poplulation. In spite of an increase in population, only 13% of work commute trips use public transit in Surrey compared to 26% of work commutes in Vancouver. The poor turn out for transit commuters is associated with an ill equipped transit system. We want to understand and uncover how this growing city will accommodate and encourage commuters to use an efficient transit system. In public consultation with residents of Surrey, the number one issue concerning them was the poor transit service. While many commuters are seen driving, its estimated that approximately 50,000 residents do not have access to a vehicle. Surrey is in great need of transit expansion and upgrades. An increase in commuting between Surrey and other suburban areas has also increased, leading to heavy congestion and traffic on major commuter routes. Surrey needs to incorporate density strategies and “suburban sprawl” into its plan of improvements to accommodate the concentration of people around its centres where, consequently, having a car is infinitely easier than using transit.
Why Analyze?
Managing a growing population is both challenging and controversial. Public transportation affects everyone, those who drive and those who don’t. The amount of non-public transit traffic varies with public transport. The elderly and disabled citizens rely heavily on accessible and reliable transportation. As it shows, Surrey’s growth is not coming to a stand still any time soon. If the population trends continue to increase the way they have been, including the influx of immigration, the current transit system needs to be heavily improved and upgraded. Not only is this a logistical issue, its an environmental one. With more people come more the potential for more vehicles and consequently a more polluted environment. However, with an efficient transit system in place its hopeful that less commuters will rely on their vehicle and will opt for transit, or perhaps there will be an increased demand for the implementation of bicycle lanes. This issue is worth analysing because, if the outcome of an efficient transit system is put into place in Surrey, it can be used as an example for other growing communities and their struggle to support transportation problems.
If Surrey continues to maintain its place as one of the largest cities in the province, and population patterns and trends continue, citizens will need more ways to travel. One of the causes may be a population growth rate that exceeds an infrastructure growth rate. If this scenario begins, there will potentially be more problems elsewhere in the region of GVRD. The lack of accessibility for others may also start to affect other parts of the infrastructure. For example, Heather Smith and David Ley examine numerous tales of various immigrant families in Surrey; in one instance, there was an immigrant who could not go home as easily has he came to an interview, because of the lack of accessible transit.
Sources: 1) Murray, Peter, S. “Suburb to Suburb Commuting and Transit Planning: a Case of Surrey, BC” Thesis: University of Victoria, 1993 2) City of Surrey Website, City of Surrey: Transportaion Strategic Plan, 2008 http://www.surrey.ca http://www.surrey.ca/files/TransportationStrategicPlan2008.pdf 3) Hello BC- Surrey http://www.hellobc.com/en-CA/Geography/Surrey.htm 4)BC Stats www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/ 5) Smith, Heather, and Ley, David. "Even in Canada? The Multiscalar Construction and Experience of Concentrated Immigrant Poverty in Gateway Cities." Annals of the Association of American Geographers` 98.3 (2008): 686-713. Web. 21 Sep 2010.
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