Posts from — August 2011

The thorny issue of how to provide sufficient taxi service to Vancouver’s downtown core on Fridays, Saturdays and special event nights may be back on the front burner, despite the sudden resignation of the chair of the province’s Passenger Transportation Board.

Lawyer Nathan Bauder, a supporter of Premier Christy Clark, was appointed to head the PTB July 8. He  was forced to resign Aug. 3 after being cited by the Law Society in connection with allegations of falsifying documents.

During Bauder’s short term, the board suddenly revived a hearing into applications from 16 suburban taxi firms to operate 15 percent of their fleets in Vancouver on Friday and Saturday nights. Those applications were effectively put on hold in a March 17 decision that approved a Vancouver pilot program to tackle the issue with 65 temporary cab licences, all issued to Vancouver firms,  on the high-traffic nights.

So the Vancouver industry was stunned when the  PTB’s July 27 bulletin suddenly announced that the hearing into the suburban firms’ application is back on. The deadline for submissions on the matter was  Aug. 11.

In its March 17 ruling, the PTB approved 65 special temporary licences for Vancouver firms for a six-month period, all operating on Friday and Saturday nights and special event days, with a formal evaluation process to determine their impact. That pilot program will not be completed until November and the evaluation will not be available until early 2012.

Nonetheless, the PTB appears set to make a decision on the suburban application. If approved, it will trigger an upheaval in the regional taxi industry.

The March 17 ruling — available on a link for the Yellow Cab application in this March 23 bulletin – noted that the suburban taxi application “could potentially impact not only service in the Vancouver area but also service in other municipalities in the Greater Vancouver Regional District.”

That’s why it made sense to hold off on the suburban firms’ applications until the Vancouver pilot project was approved. Despite an Aug. 4 appeal from the City of Vancouver to stay the course set in March, the PTB seems to be forging ahead with a hearing that could set a new direction for taxi service region-wide.

The annual crisis over continuation of Amtrak’s second train on the Cascades route from Vancouver to Seattle was quietly cancelled this year by Public Safety Minister Vic Toews announcement in Winnipeg that he’s found permanent funding for Canadian border clearance of train passengers.

It was the cost of  border clearance — a charge Ottawa thought Amtrak should pay because of the special shift required — that had put the second train in doubt after the 2010 Games and again last year. Mayor Gregor Robertson lobbied hard with local businesses, US rail supporters and fellow mayors in Washington and Oregon to keep the service and twice won extensions of the 2010 pilot program.

Now Toews has solved the problem, good news for both Vancouver’s tourism industry and the future of sustainable transportation, perhaps even higher speed trains, along the Pacific seaboard. The second train is the equivalent of several cruise landings in positive economic impact.

Translink’s “business case” to justify fare gates appears to have been crafted to justify former Transport Minister Kevin Falcon’s edict to implement them, says a City of Burnaby staff report, because the numbers don’t support the $171 million program.

Burnaby wants Translink to suspend the entire fare gate and smart card scheme to allow a comprehensive review. [Read more →]