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The Mayors’ Council is made up of 21 municipalities, the electoral area that includes UBC’s Endowment Lands, and Tsawwassen First Nation. It is the body that assembled the transportation plan in conjunction with the communities affected.

It approved Vancouver and Surrey rail expansion (SkyTrain on Broadway in Vancouver, light rapid transit in Surrey) along with bus and other expansions. About $50 million has already been spent on LRT, according to TransLink. Surrey has spent $20 million in pre-construction.

“I don’t think it’s a case of just switching technologies,” from light rail to SkyTrain in Surrey, Stewart said. “It will be interesting to see the argument put forward.

“I worry though that if someone succeeds in getting the current work cancelled, it could result in another decade of work to get SkyTrain for Surrey.

“It took a decade to get the current plan.”

Stewart has a unique perspective on switching transportation projects midstream. Light rail transit planning had begun in Coquitlam early last decade, but in 2008 the provincial government and TransLink announced SkyTrain would go ahead instead.

“The engineering work begins long before shovels break the ground,” Stewart said. “We’d done environment work and then had to throw out everything we had done. It took another decade from that decision to open the new line, it probably set us back six years.

“I would caution (Surrey) not to cancel the project, because that is what they would be doing.”