New funding is necessary if the region is to avoid a further property tax increase next year to pay for transit expansion, including the Evergreen Line.

Victoria is already celebrating construction of the Evergreen Line in advance of the upcoming Port Moody by-election, but the mayors, led by Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and Surrey Mayor Diane Watts, don’t think they can get taxpayers to agree to a new source of funds if they don’t have proof the money will be well-spent.

No doubt Translink will agree to seek the audit, the provincial Auditor General will conduct it, and the real debate will begin. The mayors meet again today to consider all options.

Will it be carbon tax? Vehicle levy, anyone? Area-benefitting tax? Regional bridge tolls? Time will tell.

One mile of the Seattle Viaduct came down in nine days last October, without the chaos drivers always anticipate on such occasions. Latest updates from Seattle show the city is moving ahead with new traffic patterns to clear the way for the tunnel, which will ensure good connections remain to the port and other arterials.

But city after city is putting a freeway on death row.

The Seattle project is just one of a wave of removals right across America, homeland of the car. According to this update in Atlantic Cities, the battle is moving to the neighbourhood level, where more and more communities are debating the shape of their future. If a freeway can come down, why not an overpass? Well, in fact, it can.

That’s well above the 65 additional cabs approved last year by Victoria’s Passenger Transportation Board on a trial basis. The Vancouver Taxi Association says Chow’s findings are so conclusive that the firms are seeking an extension of the 65-cab trial program until the full 99 taxis are approved. According to the report, the temporary permits reduced wait times and increased customer satisfaction substantially.

Under the program, the additional capacity is available Friday and Saturday nights, when customers have reported serious problems finding taxis prepared to take them out of the downtown core.

(Mayor Gregor Robertson is also urging Translink to consider expanded night bus and Skytrain service to help with the problem.)

The pilot program  was an election commitment by Mayor Gregor Robertson, who was responding to a long-standing call for such action from taxi owners, who point out that similar rules are in place all over the world.

Here in Vancouver, however, riders would sit fuming in traffic while the bus lane next to them sat empty. Robertson secured a green light from provincial transport minister Blair Lekstrom and Translink is on board.

With more than 700,000 taxi trips a year in Vancouver, the impact could be significant. Where congestion is heavy, particularly downtown, taxis will be able to move into bus lanes, reducing travel times and trip costs.

But it’s a two cents a litre lift in fuel tax which is the key to funding transit expansion, including construction of the Evergreen Line. Will fuel tax deliver the cash, or will drivers shift to cheaper and greener alternatives — like moving downtown — that don’t produce tax revenues to build transit?

Victoria transit analyst Todd Littman argues that assumptions about fuel tax, tolls and the like  need to be challenged. As incomes stagnate and demographics shift, small increases in fuel tax can produce larger shifts in consumption.

So a new tax may be very effective in reducing congestion, he argues, but not produce sufficient income to fund new roads . . . or transit.

Work is continuing at the city to integrate the contest proposals with in-house work that will inform public consultation on a new transportation, scheduled for release in the spring.

Saving six minutes each way on a daily commute may not sound like much, but it adds up to an hour a week or four hours a month to be spent as you wish, but probably relaxing with your family. Is this so bad?

Yes, the cost of the infrastructure may be $1 billion more. To many, however, the benefit would be priceless. This social gain is not factored into transit purchase decisions.

Now a new study shows that “inequality of well-being” is even more badly distributed than income. Basically, the study examines how much time and money families have at various places on the economic scale.

No matter how hard young families work, their incomes are stagnating and their personal time is declining. Not so for those at the top of the scale, who have both more money and more time.

Vision Vancouver’s transit platform, soon to be released, will continue the push for rapid transit along the Broadway Corridor. Skytrain all the way to UBC? Maybe not all the way and certainly not immediately, but for most riders, the demand is “get me there as fast as you can.” This study shows why.

Faster transit — it’s better for the planet, better all ’round.

Freeway removal is becoming so commonplace in the United States that the Urban Land Institute has created a “top 10 list” of Metro Highway Removal Projects.

It’s increasingly clear that elimination of one or both of Vancouver’s viaducts is not only possible, it’s consistent with what many cities have done with great success. This Seattle study of a range of removals concluded traffic can be absorbed and city benefits can be significant, provided careful planning comes first.

That’s the premise of Vancouver’s Viaducts and Eastern Core Strategy.

I say “re-announced” because the streetcar has been a staple of Vancouver election campaigns for a generation. I should know — I have strongly supported a streetcar program and still do.

But streetcar dreams and streetcar realities are a study in contrasts. Here are some realities:

• Translink has consistently refused, until 2009, to consider the streetcar as part of the regional transportation network. It only did so in 2009 as the Broadway Corridor study began after Mayor Gregor Robertson’s 2008 election, and then as a key to build ridership on Broadway and sustainable development on False Creek flats. This change by Translink means Vancouver could promote the streetcar as part of the regional network and see funding shared by the region. The NPA plan would put the entire $200 million cost on Vancouver taxpayers and would not even serve the flats;
• As the NPA demonstrated in the Olympic Village financing fiasco, public-private partnerships are fraught with peril. Transit systems do not make money. Vancouver taxpayers would be on the hook for the entire $200 million, plus operating losses and the premium cost of private sector borrowing. Proponents often propose to finance such projects with huge density lifts, as in Hong Kong. Where would the NPA add this massive density in a line that would snake through heritage neighbourhoods and around the West End?
• Triggering new investment in existing bus routes and out to the TriCities is the main task facing Metro municipalities today. That’s the reality and that’s where senior governments have offered to cost share. Does Councillor Anton support the proposed two cents a litre increase in the gas tax so service improvements could arrive next year? Or are Vancouver transit riders supposed to wait, and wait, and wait, for the streetcar that could only come with regional commitment to the Broadway corridor?

The reality is that the previous NPA council committed the city to $9 million in capital investment for the 2010 Games streetcar pilot project with no idea when or if the entire system could be built. The rusting tracks are a monument to that “no real plan, no real budget, fingers crossed” approach. It was a great ride for eight weeks.

My money’s on the Translink streetcar option. It’s cheaper, more practical and may actually arrive in my lifetime.

Metro Vancouver’s mayors will vote Oct. 7 to approve or reject this service increase.

Sick of being passed up at the bus stop?

Keen to see Translink win approval of the Moving Forward supplement that would add the Evergreen Line and increase bus service seven percent by 2013?

It’s time Transit Nation spoke up and 4TransitNow is one way.

The Moving Forward supplement would increase gas tax two cents a litre and find $30 million a year from other sources — perhaps property tax — to buy:

• major bus service increases in Vancouver, particularly on east-west routes;
• new service to support U-Pass expansion;
• station upgrades at Main, Commercial, Metrotown, Surrey Central, New Westminster and Lonsdale Quay;
• the 11-kilometre Skytrain Evergreen Line to the Tricities with five new stations and 28 new cars;
• King George Boulevard B-Line;
• Highway 1 Rapid bus;
• regional service increases on key corridors; and more.