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How well a community’s transportation system works might be a matter of opinion to its residents, but a new program offered by Simon Fraser University and the City of Surrey hopes to make that an informed opinion.

This fall SFU Surrey is hosting a new transportation lecture program aimed at getting everyone from residents to consultants and planners on the same page.

Organized by SFU City Program director Gordon Price, the SFU & City of Surrey Transportation Lecture Program has a full house of students registered in its first eight-week offering beginning Oct. 6.

“The program provides a great opportunity to bring citizens into the process,” says Price, who modeled the program after one he has been part of – for more than a decade – in Portland, Oregon. More than 1,400 students have completed that program.

“It’s designed to promote an understanding of who at city hall is doing what, and what has to be done,” he adds. “We look at safety questions, transit needs, land use issues, as well as the transportation connections the area has with other jurisdictions.”

The idea grew after Price invited Surrey city engineer Vince Lalonde to sit in on a session of the Portland program.

“I’m excited at the opportunity to engage, in a whole new way, our community and transportation stakeholders,” says Lalonde. “In partnership with SFU, the city of Surrey looks forward to the exchange of ideas, discussions on challenges we face and the exploration of opportunity in the delivery of transportation choices to our residents.”

Students attend classes and also get assignments and make presentations. “It’s important that we are not trying to make decisions,” Price notes. “The ground rules are that students investigate and use their own examples and meet a certain level of academic integrity.

“What this does is allow everyone to understand the processes involved in designing and maintaining an area’s transportation system,” he explains. “The academic setting provides neutral ground. This kind of engagement enables a discussion of nuances in a less emotionally volatile environment.”

During the lecture series senior staff make presentations and discuss how processes work, while other interest groups including Translink and provincial and regional planners illustrate how communities fit into the bigger picture.

“Surrey is really a classic community that was clearly designed around the automobile and that poses challenges,” adds Price. “It’s useful, when you start looking for solutions, to realize that you can only get there when you understand some of the tradeoffs necessary to reach those solutions.”

Of note:

• Gordon Price will give the opening lecture (Oct. 6) with an overview of transportation in the Lower Mainland.
• Ellen Dunham-Jones, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s school of Architecture, and co-author of Retrofitting Suburbia, Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs (2009), will give public talks on Next Generation Urbanism on Tuesday, Oct. 26 at 7 p.m. at SFU Vancouver’s Harbour Centre campus, and Retrofitting Suburbia on Thursday, Oct. 28 at 7 p.m. at SFU Surrey (room 2600).

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