An interview in The Buzzer for “I Love Transit” Week. Here’s an excerpt:
Is transit a key part of our future?
Really, our city and region won’t be able to function effectively, and especially cost-effectively, without a smart, expanding transit system.
The great news is that transit is not a real cost–it’s an investment in more efficient and cost-effective region-making, economic development, affordability, quality of life, urban health, sustainability, etc. It has an incredible return on investment, and it actually costs us money as a society to continue to underfund transit.
With the population growth we’re projecting, planning anything but a multimodal, transit-friendly city and region is a recipe for gridlock, expensive waste, missed opportunities and failure. It’s really the closest thing we have to a no-brainer when it comes to investments in public infrastructure.
The whole interview is here.
It makes one wonder: If transit is such a great return on investment, if the region couldn’t function effectively without it, if it’s a no-brainer, why are we risking it all on a rushed referendum with no Plan B if it fails?
What is it we are missing?
I probably don’t need to comment. Your findings and conclusions say it all. Good transit is a good investment.
My own observation is that the current provincial government has no idea what it’s doing. Truly no idea! And there’s no way that rational discussion will bring them to their senses. It’s just the way it is. They’ll muddle through. There’s enough leeway to do that. It’ll be an interesting trip though.
I also think there is no plan b currently (return of property tax increases?), but i also think the province and region will muddle thru somehow.
Still I think you are giving a free ride to the mayor’s culpability for this situation. As well, if you dislike a referendum what would you propose?
If you propose unilateral moves on Victoria’s part, how would you deal with some mayors working against you, asking for a tea party movement? If transit is a no-brainer, why are some influential mayors not coming together?
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“To some mayors, it was a sellout. They said Metro Vancouver was being manipulated into using the property tax in return for the province’s promise to agree to raise the gas tax by two cents.
“This provincial government has treated the mayors like sheep, herded them into a pen to shear them and only occasionally hearing a bleat,” said Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan.
“We need to have our own Boston Tea Party.””
http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=b0df96ba-986a-454d-887a-0a1463017741&p=1