Business in Vancouver has completely redesigned its website – ever so much better. Much easier, in particular, to find all my previous columns!
So here’s the lead to this month’s piece – with another link to the full text at the end.
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Sad times for TransLink: it’s getting beaten up pretty bad, and it’s starting to show.
Mike Shiffer, its head of strategic planning, has just been let go. Or should that be “sacrificed”?
We’re seeing the end of the post-Olympics success story, when an integrated transportation system performed almost flawlessly. The Canada Line arguably changed our culture. Proof: the following year, transit use increased over the record numbers during the Games.
Though there was conflict between the mayors and the province over the Canada Line (and a reorganization of TransLink as a consequence), everyone was getting along pretty well. By mid-2011, the regional mayors risked a property and gas tax increase just before municipal elections, contingent on a commitment by the province to look at new funding sources.
So we were “moving forward:” the Evergreen Line was a go, new services south of the Fraser were committed, including the follow-through on the Gateway project: express buses across the Port Mann Bridge.
And then, in a matter of a week, the goodwill was gone. The province once again pulled the rug from under the mayors, refusing to entertain new taxes. But if there was one moment when things started to go very bad, it was when Martin Crilly, the transit commissioner, turned down the anticipated fare increase on which expansion plans were based, on the presumption that funds could be found internally.
I wonder whether commissioner Crilly really understood what he was doing when he killed the momentum for transit expansion in the fastest growing parts of Metro Vancouver. His report, plus media stories on uncollected fines, fare evasion and executive bonuses, along with the anti-government groups that echo the message, has effectively cut TransLink off from further revenue and stalled public transit in its tracks.
How can elected officials go to any other source, whether property taxpayer or car driver, to find the dollars now that the transit users themselves will not be paying more (over the 2% allowed in the legislation)?
Add in gas price volatility, which costs TransLink more to operate while reducing gas-tax revenue, and the uncertainty of a replacement for $30 million in property-tax revenue due to expire in two years, it’s clear why proceeding with expansion plans would be foolhardy – which is what the mayors decided when they voted to put expansion on ice.
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I have to ask, and it’s not out of any lack of concern myself over the roadblocks hit by transit expansion in the region, especially south of the Fraser, but why do you keep focusing sharply on the fact that fares won’t increase above and beyond two per cent as a key issue? Transit riders had to pony up for increased fares without seeing any increase in service the last go-round, and have seen fares rise far, far, far above inflation since TransLink was formed. What killed the momentum for expansion was the provincial decision to play politics with the funding.
If we’re going to expand transit use in the city, it’s not going to work simply to bleed dry the people who already use transit, especially those who use it because they have no other way to get to work. Transit needs to be an economical as well as efficient alternative if people are going to use it.
Transit riders can expect an increase in fares to match inflation. Any more at the same time the mayors and province bicker over other sources of revenue would be a slap in the face, and it wouldn’t change the fact that those south-of-the-Fraser bus improvements would be killed. Transit users would simply be left with another increase in the fare for no better service than before.
For one thing, the additional funds that could be found through a fare increase would potentially help offset at least some of Translink’s short fall. For another, it would provide the political cover for someone to continue to push for transit expansion and finding new revenue sources. The fare decision was part of that ‘playing politics’ by cutting every possible avenue for Translink to expand.
But I honestly don’t know why anyone’s surprised anymore. This is classic BC Liberals. It won’t change until we have a new government.