Surrey – The Surrey Board of Trade (SBOT) has released the 2016 Surrey Road Survey results. Widening roads such as 64 Avenue, the Fraser Highway and 100 Avenue were some of many suggestions given to SBOT through a survey developed by the SBOT with the help of the City of Surrey.
“Our economy rests on the ability of our business members to travel easily throughout Surrey,” said CEO Anita Huberman. “Excluding commuter travel, we wanted to determine how many hours our businesses travel during the day and what areas of Surrey could be opportunities for improvement.”
The City of Surrey has a 10-year road improvement plan that they review annually to ensure they are prioritizing projects that have the best impact of traffic and transit improvement. The City of Surrey provided SBOT with a list of their planned improvements including road widening and intersection upgrades and the SBOT survey asked the business community to help identify which specific projects they would prioritize. Based on feedback from respondents, the City of Surrey gained a level of confidence in their plans.
Jaime Boan, Manager of Transportation at the City, said, “The City has a large annual program of multi-modal transportation improvements and as part of our planning for future investments, the input of stakeholders is important to help ensure our plans are meeting the needs of our residents and businesses. The SBOT survey is very helpful in this regard and I am pleased that most of the priorities identified in this survey are already in our plans.”
Anita Huberman thanked the two Surrey BIAs and the two other chambers for their assistance in sharing the link to their respective members. “Surrey’s business community appreciates the opportunity to provide their suggestions to the City on road improvements,” said Huberman. “This is the first year we’ve included detailed corridor and intersection options from the city’s road improvement plan by collaborating with the city.”
Huberman concluded, saying, “By providing concrete options in the survey, our members are informed of what projects the city anticipates working on. By gathering the data, the city can incorporate our responses in their strategic planning moving forward. By working together, the City of Surrey and the Surrey Board of Trade improve communication between businesses and road planners.”
The Surrey Board of Trade anticipates working jointly on future road surveys with the City of Surrey.
An overview of survey results include:
- About ¼ of respondents are self-employed, contractor, or consultant; 40% were employers
- 1 in 4 had between 11 to 50 employees; nearly as many companies had over 100 employees; and 15% were sole contractors
- The top three categories of employment were Finance and Insurance at 17%; Professional, Scientific and Technical Services at just over 15%; and Manufacturing at 13%
- Just over 50% of respondents live and work in Surrey; followed by another 14% Work in Surrey and live South of Fraser
- 87% of the respondents drive own vehicle to and from work. Transit usage came in second at 5%.
- 40% of the respondents drive at least 2 to 3 days a week as part of their employment with 30% driving 4 days or more.
- These trips average 1 to 2 hours for just over 56%; 3 to 5 hours for 22% of respondents.
- Not all employees travel: 36% of respondents claim 10% or less of their company’s employees travel during a work day. However, 20% of respondents claim 91-100% of employees travel regularly. The rest range between 3 to 7% for percentage of traveling employees
- Just under 50% of the travel is within Metro Vancouver, followed by 23% mostly in Surrey with some intra-municipal travel South of Fraser.
The survey also asked respondents to pick their top three intersections out of 17 choices for improvement and the planned intersection of Fraser Highway and 192 Street was top choice at 31%. In addition, a full range of suggestions from traffic circles and pedestrian signals were chosen and suggested for intersections throughout the city.
When asked to rate transit improvements LRT on Fraser Highway and on the Guildford, City Centre, Newton Line topped the list. Increased bus frequency and providing service into areas not currently served were the next priority.