Thursday, July 21, 2011

Take the train from 1-800-Got-Junk? Station

Metro Vancouver mayors are considering a plan to sell naming rights to SkyTrain stations in the Lower Mainland.

Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts says naming revenue could help play for the $1.4 billion Evergreen Line, and criteria could be set out to keep the names "thoughtful and tasteful."  Would those be the same "thoughtful," "tasteful" criteria that gave Victoria the Save On Foods Memorial Centre?

Possibly: "For instance," said Watts, "you look at Stadium Station. The natural fit would be ‘Rogers Stadium Station,' so something as simple as that."  Actually, the current name of that station is Stadium–Chinatown Station.  So it would be Rogers Stadium–Chinatown Station?  The Chinatown Business Improvement Association is going to love that.  Watts's response? "I'm sure there are people who aren't going to like this, but they also don't want to pay higher taxes."  No, they don't.  But they do want a TransLink that isn't a "disaster circus," doesn't mismanage everything it does, and doesn't keep raising fares and taxes and levying additional fees on people who are already struggling in a province with the country's lowest minimum wage, highest cost of living, and largest number of children living in poverty.  And they don't want to have to board the train at Jenny Craig Station or get off at Canadian Tire Station either.

And worst of all, even if this terrible idea is approved the two-cents-per-litre gas tax increase proposal approved by the Mayors' Council last week would not be scuppered.

In 2009 it was alleged that Watts's husband was running a business from their home in a residential area without a license.

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