The Mayors of Metro Vancouver will do tomorrow what the Province requires: Put forth a package of investments, primarily for transit, with a recommended way to pay for it all.
What now?
Ken Ohrn has a poetic take:
Let the howling begin
Let propaganda flow joyfully
Let fan-boys beat the drums of technical obsession
Let facts be ignored and misinformation be spread, all in the name of fear
Let well-funded factions spring up
Let regions and classes wage battle
Let TransLink be pummeled, blamed, derided and let its popularity become the issueAnd thus will the future of our region be decided
And may big plans with big payoffs carry the day
And may enough minds realize that the status quo is not an option
My take:
This is about the future of the region. What kind of place we want, and what we are prepared to pay for.
What, importantly, is the default outcome if the mayors’ vision is rejected and the referendum fails? Do we build massively more for auto-dependent growth in the fast-growing urban edge, while other parts decay? Does nothing get done, and we drift? Or if it passes, is this the breakthrough that moves us forward?
There has to be a choice. The Premier has required one. (It’ll be important to know what hers is.)
.
Yours?
Do you mean June 12 in the title?
Road pricing and charging by engine size makes total sense.
Increased sales taxes and hefty continued unionized quasi-public workforce with excessive wage packages do not make sense.
==> Missing, unfortunately, in the MetroVan proposal is a curb on unions and their excessive price they force upon the tax payers !! That lack of focus on public sector wages or quasi-public sector wages & benefits in a low risk environment is the Achilles heel that may cause this otherwise sound proposal by MetroVan to fail !!!
nope the referendum is not about the future of the region and about What kind of place we want, and what we are prepared to pay for.
The future of the region is well paved with new bridges, tunnel replacement…, and the province has decided we are prepared to pay for it: no compromise is possible.
What the referendum is about:
“if you, metro, want to pepper all those road projects with some transit here and there: feel free to do as long as you pay extra for it (since us the province we use your current tax$ for new roads)”
that is really what the referendum is about…either way we are doomed!