Category — Transportation

With provincial transport minister Blair Lekstrom promising to have Evergreen Line construction under way “within months” as a result of Friday’s Translink Mayor’s Council vote on funding, the struggle for Translink’s future shifts to the backrooms.

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.

Translink’s unions have joined the growing call for the  Mayor’s Council on Transportation to approve the Moving Forward supplement to build the Evergreen Line and expand regional transit service.

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
  [Read more →]

The NPA streetcar program re-announced by mayoral candidate Suzanne Anton today offers nothing to the tens of thousands of commuters crammed on crosstown routes today who hope Metro Mayors vote Oct. 7 to approve new investments in bus and Skytrain service by raising the gas tax.

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.

If you support Translink’s Moving Forward supplement to expand transit services across Metro, then “like” the 4TransitNow page I’ve started on Facebook to give riders a voice — and invite your friends.

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.