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.

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.)

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.

Now it’s the public’s turn to vote on their favourite proposal — including the “do nothing” option — before the city unveils the winners picked by a panel of eminent judges. The “people’s choice” award and the judges’ verdict will be revealed Dec. 1.

Although 60 percent of the competitors are local and 75 percent from Metro Vancouver, others weighed from as far afield as Hong Kong, Mexico and Slovenia.

According to planning director Brent Toderian, “submissions range from the beautification of the viaducts, to their re-use as open space or other uses, or their partial or complete removal and replacement.

“The visions range from the practical and pragmatic, to the futuristic and whimsical. Submitters appeared to be inspired by everything from water and nature, to our urban past and current housing challenges, to volcanoes, horses, corn-dogs, and knitting yarn!”

Remember, voting closes in one week: please cast your ballot and invite your friends to do the same.

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.

Wasn’t there an extra zero there?

No. In China, where community consultation is an empty category and money is plentiful, things move quickly.

The lines were done by 2010 and Guangzhou keeps on building. Here in Metro, meanwhile, we’ve finally just greenlighted another 11 kilometres on the Evergreen Line, which won’t roll for another four years at the earliest.

I was staffing Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell on a tour of Guangzhou’s gleaming  German-built underground system. Vancouver’s sister city was vaulting, along with the rest of the country, from a city of bicycles in the 1980s to an automobile gridlock zone in the 1990s and then a rapid transit city 10 years later.

In 2005, Vancouver had just ground out the decision to complete the Canada Line, a fractious regional debate that itself took many years. Still to come: a decision on new funding sources for Translink, without which some rrapid transit relief for riders on the Broadway Corridor is impossible.

That’s where a joint technical committee of seni0r provincial, municipal and Translink bureaucrats are working on proposals for alternate funding sources that will take further property tax increases off the table.

If they can’t find a solution acceptable to all by early next year, property taxes will rise in 2013 once more to pay for transit. This is precisely the scenario predicted by Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan and Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie, both former Translink chairs, who Friday voted against the new funding formula for precisely this reason.

(Note to drivers: fares have already been raised the legal maximum and are scheduled to rise another 13 percent in 2013, meaning riders will still pay the largest share of the overhead.)

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson has proposed an increase in the carbon tax on a regional basis to pay for transit.

Surrey Mayor Diane Watts added two more suggestions to the debate on Friday: an “area benefitting tax” that affects properties seeing values rise due to transit investment, and a regional bridge tolling scheme that would put crossings like Lions Gate Bridge and Ironworkers Bridge on an equal footing with tolled crossings like Port Mann and Golden Ears.

Most agree the final package could include “all of the above,” but achieving agreement will not be easy.

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.

That key vote is Friday.

Here’s the full text of the release: 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 3, 2011

Transit unions urge Metro Vancouver Mayor’s Council to support Supplemental TransLink budget to fund Evergreen Line, expand bus, Seabus and SkyTrain services as first step to sustainable funding
 
VANCOUVER – The unions representing all TransLink workers in Metro Vancouver are urging the Mayor’s Council to support passage of the “Moving Forward” Supplemental Budget to fund the Evergreen Line and expansion of bus, SeaBus and SkyTrain service.

The Joint Union Council says the budget – if passed on Friday October 7 – will allow the Evergreen Rapid Transit Line connecting Coquitlam and Port Moody to the regional rail rapid transit system to proceed and add 415,000 service hours to bus and SeaBus service by 2014 – a 7% increase.

Don MacLeod, president of the Canadian Auto Workers Local 111 representing bus drivers, said the while the Supplemental Budget will not come close to solving all of TransLink’s ongoing financial challenges in providing adequate transit services, it is an important step forward.

“The unions at TransLink believe that transit services will never meet the needs of Metro Vancouver until we reach a sustainable funding model to provide improved bus, SeaBus, SkyTrain and other needed public transportation,” MacLeod said.  “But this Supplemental Budget is a small but necessary step forward to a better transit system and we support it.”

MacLeod said in addition to the Evergreen Line and 415,000 additional service hours for bus and SeaBus by 2014, the Supplemental Budget will also fund a new B-Line service in Surrey on 104th Avenue and King George Boulevard connecting Guildford, Surrey Central and White Rock, local service connecting White Rock and Langley, Rapid Bus service on Highway 1 and the new Port Mann Bridge, as well as SeaBus and SkyTrain station renovations.

“These improvements are urgently needed by our riders, who deserve a better public transit system that serves their needs,” said JUC representative Kevin Payne of the Canadian Office and Professional Employees union local 378.  “We hope the Mayor’s Council passes this Supplemental Budget and then moves on to work with the provincial government to find the sustainable funding we desperately need.”

The Joint Union Committee is comprised of CAW locals 111 & 2200, COPE 378, Canadian Union of Public Employees [CUPE] locals 7000 & 4500, Amalgamated Transit Union locals134 & 1724 and the BC Government and Service Employees Union [BCGEU].

For more information:  Don MacLeod at 604-519-1110 ext *2288 or cell (604) 992-1781 or Kevin Payne at 604-220-7431 cell or Bill Tieleman, West Star Communications, at cell 778-896-0964 or 604-844-7827

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.