[Matsuda]

Just read this, scumbag Translink

The city of Delta is in the middle of a fight with Translink over parking. The transport authority wants to start charging drivers to use the park-and-ride lots in Delta.

But the mayor says the plan is an insult on a couple of different levels.

First, the city is under-served by Translink, and secondly, the people of Delta actually donated the land the parking lots sit on.

Translink’s park-and-ride facility adjacent to the South Delta Rec Centre is free parking, as it is at the larger Ladner exchange, but Translink wants to charge at all its 13 park-and-ride lots across Metro Vancouver.

Translink faces a unique problem in Delta.

The city has no pay parking, no meters on the street, no pay parking at the hospital, no pay parking at all, anywhere.

In Delta, free parking is the law.

“We put a bylaw together that said we will not be charging for parking in Delta, we will not have any meters in Delta,” says city mayor Lois Jackson. “And it started because of the hospital.”

Keeping the hospital parking free was the start, and it's prevented this phenomenon from invading the south of the Fraser community, and while Translink says it may need the money, Delta says for them, free parking is a matter of principle.

“We have terrible bus service on this side of the river, and the further away you are, the more it costs,” says Jackson. “The answer is no, just no. And by the way, we would like to get more for our money, not less for our money. I am really hoping that sound reason will prevail in this one.”

Translink says they are aware of the bylaw here in Delta, and they intend to respect it.