Ahh Another rainy day in the lower mainland...

My wife loves the rain...at least that's what she tells me every time I start griping about the weather. Me, I understand that rain is important but I'm no great fan of it nonetheless. Especially on a miserable rainy Saturday when my wife is at work and I am left to find creative ways to entertain our two boys.

Yesterday I decided that after skating lessons we would head out to Langley, the plan being to catch up with some old friends and drop in at my folks place. Driving out there can be a pain at the best of times so I wasn't relishing the idea of making the trip in crappy weather, but we hadn't been out in a while so off we went. On the way I tried to call a couple people to find out who was up for a visit, unfortunately it seemed as though everyone was busy or at least unable to answer the phone. This should have been my first clue but no worries, one of my parents is almost always home so we continued on anyway.

Well in this case it turned out that almost was the optimum word. Worse, when I got to my folks place I realized that I hadn't brought my key and so there we were in Langley, in the rain with nothing to do and no one to do it with. Looking at the entire situation it had appeared as though I had made "the wrong plan!"

What to do next? We loaded ourselves back up into the car and, not knowing anyone else to call we headed back in the same direction that we had come. Back home to kill the couple of hours until we had to pick mom up from work. Needless to say none of us were thrilled but despite the poor planning on my part all went fairly well on the trip home until we got to about the 104th st exit of highway 1. Surprise, surprise here we were at 2:30 on a Saturday afternoon crawling our way west toward the Port Mann bridge.

Turns out that despite being the only way we could have gone at the time we had in fact headed in "the wrong direction!"

I grew up in Langley but have lived about the last 17 years divided between parts of North Vancouver and now East Vancouver or, more specifically Hastings-Sunrise. That said, I'm pretty familiar with the different route choices available to get to my parents house and back again. Choosing a route home yesterday I suppose that I could have gone over the Pattullo bridge but driving through the heart of Langley and Surrey has never been a great option. I guess I could have taken the Alex Fraser route but I've never really been a fan of going to far out of the direction I need to go. Same with the tunnel, plus I've had some pretty bad traffic luck there in the past. Albion ferry? I wouldn't even consider it. To get where I needed to go I was really only left with one choice in crossings, the Port Mann.

Turns out that, despite this lack of choice, I had in fact chosen "the wrong bridge!"



Sound familiar? On Thursday September 27 BC NDP Leader Carole James told the Union of BC Municipalities that "the governments current Gateway plan spends billions of infrastructure dollars on yesterday's solution to tomorrows problem." An interesting statement and I guess I should agree with her since the Port Mann was in fact my problem yesterday. Unfortunately its been the problem of a lot of lower mainland commuters for about 20 years now and will continue to be a problem for thousands of commuters until the expansion proposed with the Gateway Program is completed.

Finally, after months of speculation Carole James has told the people of British Columbia where she stands (albeit not in the same place as most of us and many within her own party) on Gateway. In Carole's world the BC Liberal plan to ease congestion over the Fraser River and stop the idling that happens daily approaching it is "the wrong plan, the wrong direction and the wrong bridge!"

Sort of makes you wonder if Carole James isn't looking at the wrong picture, in the wrong century from the wrong planet doesn't it?