The Business in Vancouver series on the transit referendum continues. Here are some excerpts from Transit at the crossroads, by Jen St. Denis.
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The referendum – a campaign promise made by Premier Christy Clark in 2013 – is needed to ensure residents have a say on what will be “a substantial new tax,” Jordan Bateman, B.C. director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, told Business in Vancouver.
“The HST lesson showed us that you just can’t impose things on people without getting their say or hearing from them,” Bateman said.
To others, who note that today’s declining transit service hours per capita are the same as they were in 2008, a failed referendum means turning the clock back even further. By 2020, TransLink projects the number of service hours will fall to 2003 levels.
“You’ll take one of the best transit systems in the world and deliberately [mess it up],” said Gordon Price, a former Vancouver city councillor and program director of Simon Fraser University’s city program.
“It would seriously damage the ability of the region to move forward and hence its economic health.” …
Who’s driving this bus?
Funding challenges have become especially acute since 2012. That year, the province said no to a second try for the vehicle levy, municipal leaders reneged on a planned property-tax increase and TransLink’s commissioner rejected a fare increase
The power to make operating decisions for TransLink has shifted from regional mayors to an appointed board (part of the political fallout from the fight over the Canada Line), and will now be shared between the board of directors and mayors, a change B.C.’s transportation minister, Todd Stone, announced this February.
But whether that new governance structure will produce sound business decisions, as well as political accountability, remains to be seen. …
Where the rubber meets the road
But beyond the more visible political struggles over money and governance is a deeper ideological divide over how transportation will shape the region, say transit watchers.
Critics point to the ease with which Stone approved a 10-lane bridge to replace the aging George Massey Tunnel – evidence, they say, of a provincial preoccupation with automobile infrastructure.
It is likely that Transportation Investment Corp., the Crown corporation responsible for building and implementing tolls on the $3 billion Port Mann Bridge, will also be responsible for the new bridge.
“There are now two transportation authorities in the region able to access the local economy for their revenues, the Transportation Investment Corporation being the other one – with a different agenda for development of the transportation system that is much more road-based,” Cameron said. That, he added, will send the market “the wrong signals.”
“We’ve got the furnace and the air conditioning on full tilt. You have to have some restraint in providing for the automobile in order to give transit a chance in the marketplace.”
By requiring a referendum, Price said, the province has thrown up yet another roadblock to moving forward on 10- and 30-year transit plans already developed by TransLink. Meanwhile, decisions on roads and bridges under provincial jurisdiction continue to go ahead.
“The belief is, as the economic engine and job generator of the province, a balanced transportation strategy is more efficient and more productive for the goals the province has,” Price said. “If you believe that economic growth and job generation are your platform planks, but your jurisdiction is only to build the big roads or the Massey crossing, then you put the real job generation at risk.” …
Should TransLink get more of your money?
Absolutely not, says Jordan Bateman, B.C. director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Bateman argues the agency is top-heavy and wastes money. Despite a 2012 provincial audit that found $41 million in cost savings, Bateman says those efficiencies were mostly found by cutting bus service, not tackling executive pay.
“TransLink needs a complete reorganization,” Bateman said. “This is an agency with at least five boards of directors, an agency with hundreds of overpaid employees.”
However, transit advocates have argued that the cost savings identified by several recent audits don’t come close to meeting TransLink’s funding needs to maintain and improve existing bus service and build projects like the Broadway subway line and Surrey light rail system.
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Bateman’s comments at the end give some insight into how the referendum will be fought: opponents will pursue hot-button populism. Yet their demands, even if fulfilled, would have trivial significance. TransLink could halve the salaries of head-office administration or eliminate 50 percent of the jobs – and save the equivalent of five bus routes.
But Bateman’s strategy demands blood; someone has to suffer, preferably ‘bureaucrats,’ though union drivers will do. But in the name of eliminating ‘waste,’ the region’s economic vitality will be put at risk, it’s ability to plan sustainably reduced, hundreds of development opportunities and thousands of job opportunities foregone, and the lives of hundreds of thousands made tangibly more difficult.
One thing I learned from the recent campaign to approve the cycle tracks in Calgary is that the cynical arguments are attractive if there’s no real debate happening, but as soon as you put forth a well articulated positive argument, you can get some real traction.
As Gordon has said before, the Yes argument needs a champion. The referendum will not be won without one.
“We’ve got the furnace and the air conditioning on full tilt” – Ken Cameron