South Fraser OnTrax - A Langley Transportation Advocate Group Overview by Bob Richter

Photographs, comments and article courtesy of Bob Richter

As the LFP Photographer I attended the July 10th South Fraser OnTrax meeting at the invitation of it's chair & co-founder Joe Zaccaria. South Fraser OnTrax was only created some few months ago I believe by Joe & Nathan Pachal who were formerly with VALTAC until they broke away and formed their own transportation advocacy group. This meeting had 13 people in attendance and Joe told me that they had a mailing list of approximately 50 plus people. The organization’s issues that Joe mentioned were that they required more financial contributions and that he, Joe, was still personally underwriting most of the group’s expenses so far. Their second issue is that they need more help/volunteers with many aspects of the organization as he and Nathan were shouldering must if not all of the responsibilities so far.

What impressed me is that Joe mentioned that it was their intent to register as a non-profit society in the future and that they have always had an open book policy with their financials available to public scrutiny. Their website also has full audio recordings of their meetings and extensive related documentation. Very impressive documentation.

In the very short while that South Fraser OnTrax has existed they have had two presentations from Township Council members. The one I attended obviously had Mayor Kurt Alberts presenting his Langley Township transportation achievements as well as his primer on Translink and transportation in Langley from his point of view.

Previously Councillor Jordan Bateman formally also presented to one of their meetings on Streetcars. He presented his personal vision of installing them in Langley. Councillor Bateman was even a South Fraser OnTrax financial sponsor and is listed as an event sponsor on their website for his own presentation to South Fraser OnTrax by contributing monies to the group for the day of his presentation to the group.

I am also planning to make a visit to VALTAC ASAP, the other Langley transportation advocacy group, from which Joe & Nathan broke off from. I will hopefully capture some of their meeting pictures and be able to do a small writ up about them to. VALTAC has also advocated for better transportation for quite a few years than the most recent Joe & Nathan’s South Fraser OnTrax organization.

The only observation that I will make is that I am still mostly unclear why Joe & Nathan decided to break away from VALTAC. I also personally think that both groups, both based out of Langley, should perhaps reconsider and amalgamate again or at least have a rep go to each other’s meetings and work more closely together than they do now. There is certainly more strength in a well coordinated front as opposed to two separate organizations. There was a lady there from another Abbotsford or Chilliwack group called RAIL FOR THE VALLEY who said that she was there as an observer and that she also also attended VALTAC meetings as well. At least there are now many groups south of the Fraser that are advocating better transit for us and it’s nice to know that they mostly attend each other’s meetings and share ideas and actions. Congratulations to all of them and their efforts.

(LFP Editor's correction/clarification submitted by Joe Zaccaria in the Haloscan comments: " Just one clarification...Councillor Bateman and Ward presented some ideas on streetcars at our June meeting. Bateman contributed $100 to support the workshop that we held at Kwantlen University in late June. Although he attended this workshop as a participant only, he did not make any presentation as had been inaccurately reported in error by the Langley Advance. - JZ")...