SkyTrain is finally coming to the Township. The Province insists the Expo Line will reach Langley by 2029, and a Bus Rapid Transit line is planned to run north up 200 Street to Maple Ridge. For most communities, this would be the moment when planning that has been in development for some time finally comes into play. In Langley Township though, to some observers it feels more like building a front door before planning where the rooms will go.

Mayor Woodward’s council has frequently mentioned transit-oriented neighbourhoods and walkable streets in recent planning documents. The 200 Street 2040 study frames the corridor as a generational opportunity. The Willoughby Community Plan is being refreshed using the same language. On paper, the Township describes its plans for preparing for higher level transit. But when the time came to act, the effect was that the matter did not move forward.

In May 2023, Woodward’s council funded the 200 Street 2040 study in part to prepare for the coming Bus Rapid Transit line and demonstrate readiness for higher level transit. By July 2024, staff delivered the finished report and asked council to adopt its recommendations so implementation could begin. Instead, at the final meeting before the summer break, council opted not to adopt the recommendations at that time. Months later, the study reappeared, this time as an “interim guide,”, which some observers viewed as more of a reference document than an implementation plan. Meanwhile, development continued to gather around the future Willowbrook Station without clear public certainty that the larger framework would catch up.

Willowbrook will matter, the new station will be built beside Willowbrook Shopping Centre with an off-street bus exchange linking the Township to Surrey, Langley City, and the rest of the Expo Line. The station is expected to become a significant regional transfer point. Yet, a short walk to the north, 200 Street looks unchanged: six broad lanes, long crossings, patchy sidewalks, cycling routes that currently taper off in some sections. It remains a road built for speed, not a street meant to serve the daily life of a growing community.

Local reporting, based on Township growth scenarios, has suggested the corridor could eventually accommodate close to 100,000 residents within 800 metres of 200 Street, a scale that would layer a small city onto a single corridor. Preparing for that scale of growth will require new parks, schools, crossings, transit connections, and community facilities. I have not seen the Township publicly present a clear, funded schedule for these amenities. This is not for lack of vision, the 200 Street 2040 study imagines walkable neighbourhoods, mixed use nodes, and transit friendly streets. The Willoughby Community Plan update echoes the same ideas. The OCP update promises a future transit corridor plan.

However, a vision without commitments is simple aspiration, and the Township has not shown residents how any of this will be delivered. There is still no schedule for continuous sidewalks along 200 Street, no map of where safe walking and cycling routes will go, no list of parks or schools to serve thousands of new households, and no explanation of how these projects fit into a capital plan with limited available funding. The municipal debt has been described by some as already unusually high compared to past decades.

Rapid transit generally attracts new development. That is not the issue. The issue is whether the Township is preparing for what comes with it. Woodward’s council has promoted the idea of a modern, transit connected Township, but the work needed from council to support that vision has moved disappointingly slowly. The result is an all too familiar pattern: ambitious language upfront followed by quiet hesitation when it comes to execution. If the Township does not set the foundation now, the next decade along 200 Street may simply repeat recurring patterns where infrastructure lagged behind development, with growth arriving faster than the infrastructure that is meant to service it.

Some residents are asking why council deferred the 200 Street 2040 plan in the first place, or why it still treats the study as a loose reference point rather than the backbone of a coordinated strategy. They are also asking where the funding will come from for the sidewalks, crossings, bike routes, parks, and schools the corridor badly needs.

By the time trains start pulling into Willowbrook, the concrete will already be set. The question now is whether Woodward’s council will act fast to build a community to match the station, or whether riders will step out into the same old 200 Street, only taller, busier, and no better prepared than before.