[Coquitlam Mayor Richard] Stewart warns that the region is already at a tipping point. If the referendum on road pricing fails, which is likely, he said, the public will face even higher costs because without transit, more roads will have to be built.
“The whole system will crash,” he said. “We could build wider roads and lots of parking and let (Burke Mountain) become a car-dependent neighbourhood. But we made the decision that we’re going to try to create a livable region.
“We have an important decision to make. It’s not a choice of spending or not spending. It’s a choice of spending on transit or (spending) a lot more on roads.”
– Metro Vancouver transit options not meeting demand, some say, by Kelly Sinoski.
“The whole system will crash,” he said. “We could build wider roads and lots of parking and let (Burke Mountain) become a car-dependent neighbourhood. But we made the decision that we’re going to try to create a livable region.
“We have an important decision to make. It’s not a choice of spending or not spending. It’s a choice of spending on transit or (spending) a lot more on roads.”
– Metro Vancouver transit options not meeting demand, some say, by Kelly Sinoski.
Maybe the referendum question should be “Should we stop funding any expansion of the Public Transit system?”. Just put it right out there. Then we can move past this silly moment and start working on the next steps.
Says the mayor who still wants to spend up to $180 million (with Translink contributing up to $100 million of that, where would that come from?) on the United Boulevard Extension dumping thousands of more cars a day in to the street of New Westminster… so livability goal are only for Coquitlam in Mayor Stewart’s view?
Let’s hope this is a consistent change of tune, not anti-referendum bandwagon jumping.
I look at it this way: The money is going to come from the taxpayer one way or another. What the referendum should be about is ‘how can we tax fairly’. The public has already declared that they support more public transit.
So I don’t think it’s an issue of funding roads vs transit. But a referendum on “How do you want to be taxed” won’t get much support. A vote for no more taxes would be looked at as a vote against transit, but as I’ve explained above the public already supports more funding for transit.
Anyway we tax, whether through congestion pricing or property tax, it’s not going to be entirely fair. So there’s no point with a referendum unless the government is soundly against transit funding. Since the public supports transit, and a referendum will serve just to delay transit funding, why should the public support a referendum?
But then wasn’t the election just a plebiscite on whether to have a referendum on transit?
To say “the preople voted for a referendum during the election” because the Premier lobbed the idea out one day is like saying “the people voted for making red lights optional” because the Premier decided to run the red one day.
I share the views of our host, that this referendum is a bad idea, but I don’t think that it necessarily is a disaster.
First I think it important to understand why the government is doing this. This is driven by the HST experience when BCers had a collective freakout over something that was a no brainer. There are doubtless people in the government that know that new revenue sources are needed and that road pricing is a good idea, but they are terrified, probably wisely, of an unprepared public.
(I’m hearing a certain amount of paranoia and cynicism about the government’s motives that does not seem reflective of reality. The Libs, and the Socreds before them, are not enemies of public transit. They have stepped up to build big ticket items, Expo, Canada and Evergreen Lines, so there isn’t any lack of will on the government’s part here. The NDP built the Millennium Line, but that line was a little dicier in terms of its logic. The right of centre parties see transit as infrastructure and province building – the way they see road expansion – more than a social service, but they are quite willing to do get behind it.)
In a previous post Gordon speculated that the government might go for a soft referendum, basically a non-question leading to a non-answer. I wouldn’t bet against this, but I do think that there are strategies for winning a real referendum.
1. Preparing the public for new revenue sources like road pricing.
If the government started providing free donuts every morning, just heaped on tables, people would line up to get some. If the line were too long, they would forget about it. Consumption of donuts would go up, some consumption would be wasteful in that people would consume donuts only because they were “free”, and the consumption of donuts would displace other things like bread. Of course the donuts would not be free, they would be paid for with tax dollars, but they would seem free. This is how we provide roads. They are just provided free, and when they are getting congested, it is as if we are lining up for them. This is inefficient just because the congestion is inefficient, and it is inefficient because for some people, the value they get out of the road will be less than the cost they impose on others. We are providing roads in the same way that the Soviets provided bread and are getting the same result. So a big cause of our congestion problem is communism. Communism has its uses in that everyone is treated equally, and those with more money cannot buy better service. But if we provide bread with the pricing mechanism, I see no reason not to provide roads as well. Road pricing has great potential to improve our transportation system, but the public needs to be educated on the problems of communist roads. This isn’t going to be easy, but the potential of significantly reduced congestion ought to be a big incentive to change. As part of a road pricing strategy, I might also suggest that the Translink gas tax and Hydro tax be ended.
2. Rolling road tolls into road pricing.
If the Pattullo Bridge and Massey Tunnel are replaced with tolled structures, we will have four tolled links over the Fraser, no tolls anywhere else, and a very congested Alex Fraser Bridge. I don’t think that the government is going to think that this is very politic. They are going to want a way out. Rolling all these tolls into a road pricing scheme is one way to do that.
3. Lowering the operating cost ratio.
It seems to me that it is reasonable for the public to expect improved operating costs on a more intensively used transit system. One way to do this is to have benchmarks for an increasing farebox recovery ratio over a certain period. What would be useful is to separate out the parts of the transit system that are offered as a social service, and the parts that are there just for ridership so that only the ridership component is benchmarked. Another measurement tool would be to equalize the net road subsidy after gas tax revenues with the transit subsidy so that the road price and the fare are paying for an equal portion of the transportation cost.
4. Laying out an infrastructure plan.
I think a plan that provided for a specific infrastructure program would be much more appealing. These types of things pass in the supposedly anti-tax US all the time. (Of course they fail all the time too.) Extending Expo to Langley, Millennium to UBC and Expo (or Canada) under harbour to North Vancouver, the Massey and Pattullo replacements, Ironworkers refurb (when it comes), New West rail bridge etc etc could all be included in such a plan. Many of these would be very popular. All of this would be massively expensive, but also affordable over a 20 year time frame.
5. Other funding sources.
New revenue sources for Translink would also be more palatable if coupled with other revenue sources. The provincial and federal government could be expected to contribute on the big ticket items. Some of the money could also be borrowed because interest rates are so low. This would still have to be paid off with tax dollars, but it would bring the benefits now. I would also support something like a transit casino with the proceeds going to transit projects.
6. Have this referendum as part of a series.
Doing a truly one-off referendum is potentially a disaster if the thing goes down in flames. But in the US, where they do these things all the time, they are more like the neverendum. In Seattle they voted for the monorail half a dozen times before it wasn’t built and they voted against a new stadium a half a dozen times before it was built. In that political culture, a single referendum is never the last word.
I have two questions here:
1) How is road pricing a “new revenue source”? For example, there are very few home owners who do not own a car (especially outside downtown core). So if you are a home owner whether you get charged an additional property tax, car levy, or road pricing tax it all comes from the same same source…As in local taxpayer…If we started taxing tourists for the use of our roads that would be a new revenue source.
2) If we assume that road pricing is here to replace gas tax how is road pricing any less sensitive to variability in overall driving than gas tax? For example what happens during the next recession when people drive less or if people simply decide to drive less in response to road pricing tax?
All revenue comes from the people, or the economy, so looked at in that way, there is no such thing as a new revenue source. But this would be a new type of tax. And it would be vulnerable to peak car and recessions, but less so than the gas tax because it would not react to increases in fuel efficiency or the price of oil.
If people decide to drive less and switch to other modes of transportation, the overall transportation system becomes cheaper.
However, IMHO many of the benefits are also captured by the health care system. We should find a way to draw that link.
In answer to your #2 – it isn’t resilient. Focusing on road pricing is the gas tax in slow motion. It will yield similar issues in time (diminishing yield).
Property tax is perfect. It can’t be avoided. It is born by all residents, either directly as owners, or indirectly as renters. It doesn’t depend on behaviour.
To Andrew, but the problem with property tax is it has no relationship to income or a person/family’s ability to pay it. A far fairer system, particularly with our progressive taxation system (despite how much it is continually under attack by the right), would be to fund transit infrastructure out of general revenues, even if this means a slight increase to the tax rates.
Property tax is a lot less visible, home owner pay it once a year, renters never see it except in rent increases. This is why the provincial government likes to push transit funding on the municipalities and the property tax. Or raise MSP premiums while boasting of lower income tax rates. Let’s make the tax transparent and fair based on ability to pay.
I agree that property taxes are useful taxes, and I don’t agree that they are unfair (the taxpayer owns the property so isn’t impecunious), but I don’t think that they can do the heavy lifting of providing more transit. There is already quite a bit loaded on to the property tax, and municipal governments have plenty of other spending priorities. And property taxes do nothing to counteract the notion that driving is “free”. Road pricing will be variable, and will lead in itself to declines in driving, but all taxes are variable. Property values vary as well, it is just that the mill rates are adjusted to generate the required revenue. The tolls would vary all the time with time of day and changes in travel demand, so keeping that variability to generate a certain amount of revenue won’t be much of a problem.
Andrew:
You say property tax is perfect because it doesn’t depend on behaviour. That’s exactly what’s wrong with it! Changing behaviour is one of the primary goals of Metro and its constituent cities. Taxes that are unsustainable because they drop when people reduce their driving are absolutely necessary. The difference needs to come from the Province, but they’ll refuse to do so even though they’ll be benefitting from lower health care costs.
I think I’ve just changed my mind about this referendum. The BC Liberals should be pushing a Yes vote with all their might.
As people drive less and walk/cycle more health care (Provincial) costs go down whereas the cost of providing transit (local) goes up. With a Yes vote the Liberals would be able to reduce taxes for their wealthy donors while TransLink and the cities would get the blame for having to raise taxes/fees. Hey Christy, a Yes vote means the 2017 election is already in the bag.