From Business in Vancouver:
“People don’t have access to adequate public transportation in Surrey,” said Surrey Poverty Reduction Coalition coordinator Alice Sundberg. “We know that you can save a lot of money by taking public transit. But if you don’t have access to it, or if it takes you two and a half hours to get to work via public transportation, you’re not going to use it.”
Even though the tax is regressive, meaning low-income people will be more affected than higher-income taxpayers, Sundberg said her organization is urging a yes vote because good transit can be an important benefit to people who are living in poverty.
Full article here.
A measure of the success of the Great Dupe will be the percent of low-income people who vote No in the referendum.
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I’ve always been skeptical of this entitled claim that high-quality transit should just follow sprawl around. The sticker price on houses in Surrey might be lower, but owning and maintaining a car is very expensive. If you can afford to purchase a home anywhere in the Lower Mainland, crying poverty over this issue is disingenuous.
For actually poor households – who rent – is it really cheaper to pay a landlord in Surrey and drive everywhere than it is to rent almost anywhere else in the Lower Mainland and take public transit? And please keep in mind, ‘because they do make this choice, it must be cheaper’ is a position that assumes an awful lot of thoughtful and rational decision making.
Agreed. Vehicle ownership and operating costs dramatically increase total commuting costs – housing and transportation really should be considered as a total expense when looking at affordability (Todd Litman of the VTPI frequently makes this point). For those who can afford to buy a home, there is no excuse to cry poverty.
However, for the renters (and there are a lot of renters), it is more complicated. I feel that living in a more transit accessible area and paying higher rent, but not owning a car, is a better option. However, there is a severe shortage of rental units; it may not be possible to rent in a transit accessible area even if desirable. Rental vacancy in downtown Vancouver/West End is only 0.3% (http://metronews.ca/news/vancouver/1241487/vancouvers-rental-vacancy-rates-worse-than-feared-mla/). It’s about 1% in the Metro Vancouver region.
We certainly need improved public transit, but we also need a massive increase in rental units region-wide. As transit and land use are intimately linked, these objectives can be achieved in tandem.
Something not brought up much is improved walkability. It’s good that people can get to the Skytrain and go somewhere else but often people just need to go 5 blocks to visit a friend.
Will there be ways for 10 year olds to walk to their friends house along a safe corridor? Is anything in the plan addressing speeding through residential neighbourhoods?