Scot picks up on this CBC report:
Mayors across Canada are facing the same dilemma: not enough authority to deal with growing municipalities with growing needs.
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Though one does have to wonder, under a strong mayor system, how Toronto would have done under Rob Ford.
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UPDATE: To further add to the discussion about the limited powers of mayors, Frances Bula – in “Unspinning Vancouver,” in the Globe – makes the point that no mayor of Vancouver will alone be determining whether or in what form there is rapid transit on Broadway:
The thing about the now decade-old tussle about rapid transit on Broadway is that Vancouver’s mayors and mayoral candidates have always blown hot and cold.
Mr. LaPointe’s Non-Partisan Association predecessor, Sam Sullivan, became a huge champion of the Broadway SkyTrain line in the middle of his term. He conducted online polls to solicit public opinion and championed the line.
But he did not start that way. In the 2005 mayoral race, Vision Vancouver’s Jim Green was the big transit supporter and Mr. Sullivan fretted that the line was too expensive.
Similarly, Mr. Robertson in the early years of his first term was oddly silent on how he felt about the line. The city was still recovering from the Canada Line construction, which Mr. Robertson had criticized when he was a New Democrat MLA. So during the couple of years that TransLink was studying possible options for Broadway, the mayor was nowhere to be found in news stories. Only in the past two years has he become a vocal proponent.
Former city councillor Gordon Price said he suspects mayors undergo a transformation once they come under the spell of the city’s engineering department. For years, city engineers have made a persuasive case that Broadway’s transit problems can only be solved by a SkyTrain-type line and that it is impossible* to put surface light rail on a street that changes widths so dramatically.
Mr. LaPointe is actually starting out differently than Mr. Sullivan or Mr. Robertson. His first statements were not forceful, but they did not indicate any opposition. He said Broadway was much busier than any streetcar line in Canada was usually able to handle.
Mr. Price adds one more point. It hardly matters what mayors do, since everything depends on a regional consensus and the province providing huge dollars for any major project.
To which I would further add: There is no way Vancouver will get the votes needed around the regional board tables, whether Metro and/or TransLink, to move ahead of other regional transit priorities. Imagine the City asking Surrey for its support to bump their aspirations for light rail down the line so the B’way line could proceed. There just aren’t the votes. It’s either both together, or Surrey goes first.
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* Well, maybe not impossible, but extremely disruptive. Whether on, above or below ground, putting in a rapid-transit line is a like urban open-heart surgery: it’s going to be traumatic, but the patient needs it for the long run.
There is no way Vancouver will get the votes needed around the regional board tables, whether Metro and/or TransLink, to move ahead of other regional transit priorities… There just aren’t the votes. It’s either both together, or Surrey goes first
Imagine building a white elephant, in a remote suburb, while people get passed up on Boroadway…all that because politicos thinks it is fair to spread the money around?
So may be a reason why we need a referendum?
This was precisely the issue in 2003-2004 when, for political reasons, many politicians in the region and on the TransLink board sought to have the Evergreen Line proceed before the Canada Line. Ridership projections for the Canada Line were significantly greater than for the Evergreen Line. Nevertheless, the notion that the Northeast Sector deserved the transit line that it had been promised created a major political force which almost kiboshed the Canada Line. Of course, in the end, TransLink acknowledged that, with its limited funding capacity, it could not afford to forego the Canada Line, which had significant senior government funding support as result of the (political) desire to have that line constructed before the Olympics.
“. . . putting in a rapid-transit line is a like urban open-heart surgery: it’s going to be traumatic.”
All the more reason to incrementalize, decentralize and digitize!
SkyTrain underground to Arbutus, then LRT at-grade could work because Broadway west of Arbutus doesn’t have as much traffic volume as Central Broadway. That was one of the “Combination” options considered by TransLInk.