There’s a valid difference of opinion as to whether the referendum on transit funding can be won or lost. But everyone agrees on this: If the referendum is just about TransLink, it loses.
Then the referendum becomes an opportunity to ‘send TransLink a message.’ And there’s a menu of messages to choose from.
Here’s the news on TransLink as of a few minutes ago:
.
From salaries to safety to the cost of it all – and now social-media reaction to the roll-out of the Compass Card – every voter, regardless of their support for transit infrastructure, will have a reason to vote no.
It’s almost as though it was a strategy.
Since there are so many unknowns about this vote, including the actual wording, it’s left a vacuum – one that can be filled with an incessant litany of complaints and criticisms of TL, led by the professional anti-government critics and magnified by a media already comfortable with the frame. Building public disdain constitutes a good ol’ fashioned hate-on, with no competition for the media microphone, that will shape the public opinion no matter what wording is proposed for the referendum. It’ll be just about TransLink, and whether it’s worth the money.
Those who want to get out a yes vote will have to defend TransLink first – something they really don’t want to have to do. Starting from a defensive position is not the way to get support for raising taxes.
And there are only 457 days left – assuming the vote is left as long as possible.
For goodness sakes. Stop engaging with crap like that. As soon as you do, you accept that the referendum is about translink.
Make it about city-building…Transit, not translink.
The response to any idiot that mentions translink salaries, compass cards, or anything else is simple:
“This isn’t about operations, this is about building regional infrastructure to keep us moving. All referendum-approved money will go to new infrastructure.”
The internet’s really helpful at telling you how to win a tax increase referendum, and that’s to make sure people are voting for specific projects, something they want, so if your question has ANY money for operating expenses, then yes, you’ve lost. But ask people to pay for a construction program that includes popular projects, and they’ll probably surprise you.
I have come to understand that there is a ‘chattering class’ out there, relatively small, made up of critics with larger agendas and some who can only be described as trolls, who get a disproportionate amount of coverage in the media. And TransLink gets a disproportionate amount of their attention it seems.
But the fact is that the majority of people pay no attention to them (critics, trolls and indeed the media itself). How else to explain that in spite of all the stuff flung at TransLink, customers have set 12 ridership records in a row while customer service ratings have been holding at record high levels for a few years now. The majority of transit systems (and transit customers) in North America would love to have our problems.
In many respects, TransLink is vulnerable to ‘the law of large numbers’. At 1.2 million boardings per average workday, if one per cent have a bad experience and one per cent of them go to the media, that’s over 100 stories per day.
Now of course, the critics, complainants and even trolls should be heard and heeded, but we should not allow them to claim that they represent the majority.
Are there any deadlines for announcing whether there will be a referendum and what the questions will be?
@Ken Hardie, sorry if you come to me repeatedly with your begging bowl out, and at the same time increase the number of your employees making over $100k by almost 15%, then the scorn is well deserved. The thousands streaming across the border to avoid your taxes, levies and fees aren’t the ones who are out of touch.
Hi Bob, I think TransLink could do itself a favour by publishing the base salaries of staff and then showing overtime amounts and holiday cash-outs.
Police tend to work a lot of overtime, which can be a major factor in the totals shown in the FIA report.
It is also worth noting that most of TransLink staff (IE the non-police part), are planners, financial analysts, accountants, business analysts and engineers – all with professional designations – those people tend to attract larger salaries.
As for the 15% growth, I will try to get back to you with the absolute numbers from the FIA report.
The total wages covered by the report totals $54 million…which, if my math is correct, is 3.6% of TransLink’s total annual revenue.
As for the ‘begging bowl’ comment, current and contemplated taxes support the transportation system that is central to the entire economy. TransLink will always live within its means – it has to by law – so the issue becomes what we can afford to do, or what we can afford to do without. The matter of salaries is important, of course, but it is such a small factor in the total picture, and it is more than unfortunate (more like ‘destructive’) that certain forces obsess with it when there far more critical things to consider.
Ken,
So if I understand things correctly these 3.6% for the wages of overall Translink budget refer to “Translink” only wages (basically the administration, management and planning). This does not account for wages for operations and maintenance (people driving buses, sky-train attendants and people maintaining equipment). Those in your budget belong to “Transit Expenditures” category if I am not mistaken? In any case this is not the point of my question, just wanted to clarify it.
Now, being the numbers guy, if I wanted to show that I am running an efficient operation, I would want to show that a simple statistic such as cost/passenger/km for my system is comparable or better than for other systems of similar size in NA and/or western world AND that such cost is decreasing (adjusting for inflation) over time. How does Translink measure up over time and compared to the other systems? Because if Translink is comparatively efficient then it is relatively easy to make the case for additional money for expansion. However, if one is to look at the findings of the efficiency review (http://translinkcommission.org/TransLink_Efficiency_Review_Mar_21-12_FINAL.pdf) things do not look very rosy for Translink at least up to 2010 compared to other Canadian cities.
Thanks
Dejan
@ Dejan,
I understand the need to review and assess excess costs, but your posts neglects complexity. A culprit identified in the link you provide is ‘excess’ bus capacity. Are you willing to say to people SoF, or anywhere outside of Vancouver that their bus routes need to be cancelled because they have a higher cost? Are you ok cutting back on the FTN?
You should read this:
http://www.humantransit.org/2009/12/yet-another-transit-isnt-green-because-of-empty-buses-story.html
SoF service is close to my heart. I ride transit in Surrey and the difference between pre-2007 and now is epic, even with current ‘rationalization’.
http://www.deltachamber.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Transit-Improvements-South-of-Fraser-Region-_Feb-2-2011.pdf
SoF service is something I never use, but still consider it the highest priority for the region. I recently chose to drive home from the valley via 1A, 10, 99 instead of going through all the construction on the freeway and was shocked at just how much of that route is now lined with housing and other development.
This summer I’ve seen nearly empty transit vehicles in BC and Alberta providing service in car-oriented communities. It reminded me that TransLink’s low use routes are more normal than the critics and “rationalization” promotors want to admit.
For the most part transit is a public service with highly visible costs and mostly invisible benefits. Ken alluded to transit being essential to the regional economy and Gordon often talks about the health benefits of a society organized around transit and human powered transportation. Those are but two of many benefits we generally take for granted and forget about when the time comes to foot the bill.
My father-in-law is blind and know how much difficulty he has trying to get anywhere with the infrequent transit in his community. I know that most non-resident domestic care workers have to travel great distances each day to get from affordable housing to the seniors who rely on them. I know most retail clerks and baristas are in the same boat; without a bus they wouldn’t be able to work. You may not take transit yourself, but many of the people you rely on do.
If you want to have a question that works, then you have a big problem to solve. Obviously the people that have to pay for the increased transit will inevitably be those that drive. The people south of the Fraser and east of the Pitt River (heck even Coquitlam) aka everyone in zone 3 does most of the driving. So any tax increases will hit them the hardest.
At the same time, the best business case for transit will always be on the north side of the River, in the city core. Why would someone pick a skytrain extension through Surrey (or wherever elseO when the 99 Bline already has higher ridership?
So regardless of what the question is, so long as it continues the trend of tax money flowing from one part of the region to help fund another (and still no hope of a viable transit alternative for those doing the funding, not even in the long term) then the referendum will be doomed to failure.
I’m really not sure that people in zone 3 do most of the driving. They probably drive more per person, but there are more people in zones 1 and 2. The way to make this sell is to combine transit with roads. So the Golden Ears, Port Mann, Pattullo and Massey Tunnel reconstruction and tolls are wrapped into the new charge. Heavy Port Mann users will probably pay less under the new system which brings in a natural constituency. Yes on a strict transit logic it makes sense to build the Millennium extension before the Expo extension, but I would still build Expo first out of the interest of regional equity.
In effect, the fact that bad TransLink PR is coming now at the end of the summer might actually be a good thing. It’s PR basics, really. This is like weekly news: you release on Monday if you want it to be the topic for the week; you release on Friday if you want it to be forgotten over the weekend. The late-summer release is like a Friday release (on top of that, the releases were also usually end-week anyway).