Plan for Burnaby Mountain gondola receives ‘favourable response’: TransLink

BURNABY (NEWS 1130) — A long-discussed plan to allow SFU students and others to make it to the top of Burnaby Mountain on a gondola has passed another hurdle, with TransLink suggesting the concept has widespread public support.

The first round of public consultation, conducted by online survey, wrapped up Sept. 30.

TransLink CEO Kevin Desmond said the amount of feedback received exceeded expectations.

“We received over 10,000 survey responses, we are very pleased at the volume of the responses,” he told the Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation.

“Early indications are a pretty favourable response, but we’re still sorting through the information. We’ll be reporting that out in due course.”

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The project itself, which would run from the Production Way SkyTrain station to the top of Burnaby Mountain, could eventually transport 25,000  people a day up, eliminating the need for the diesel buses which currently travel the route.

However, Desmond admits the project is far from a done-deal at this point.

“The next steps would be to interpret that information, bring it back to the City of Burnaby to SFU and other stakeholders and of course the Mayors’ Council and feed that into the additional tactical analysis,” he noted.

Meantime, a similar consultation on a proposed extension of the SkyTrain to Langley has been paused due to the snap provincial election.

Desmond said delaying this part of the process won’t push back the project’s overall timeline.