What do we do with TransLink?
Since so many people justified a No vote on the referendum because they believed TL was too incompetent and wasteful to be trusted with more tax dollars, there must now be some response to their beliefs. But what?
Presumably the intent is to see TL reformed so that it no longer wastes money and is operated efficiently – and to do that, it needs to be punished. Staff must be let go, particularly senior management; wages and benefits, particularly for drivers, need to be reduced. Low performing routes eliminated. Compass cards either abandoned or implemented – without any further expenditures. Do more with less: accommodate existing demand plus growth without doing anything that would piss people off. And do it with less money.
In sort, TransLink needs to be punished in order to get to a sufficient level of perfection to justify a tax increase.
Where did this absurdity come from?
It became clearer to me in a conversation I had on the street with a smart, conversative, long-time Vancouverite who very much agreed on the need to have a well-functioning transit system around which to shape growth in the region.
But whenever we got to a certain point of agreement, out came the anecdotes. Stories of imcompetence, of staggering waste, of overpaid bureaucrats – all familiar stuff, all believed to be true, regardless of an undeniable reality: the transit system we have is pretty good. Sure it could be better, but somehow we managed to build and run one of the better transit systems on the continent with totally incompetent management and staff.
Yet thanks to confirmation bias – the repetition of self-reinforcing opinion and selected facts among a peer group – he wasn’t able to acknowledge that inconsistency.
Until it came to the salary of Translink’s CEO. On that point, he departed from group-think consensus: no, at $400,000, that was not excessive compensation for a manager of a $1.5 billion corporation on which the economy of the region depended. Further, it would indeed be difficult to recruit a first-class manager unless he was paid competitively – say, on the order of Port Metro Vancouver, which pays twice what TransLink does.
And yet that’s now impossible politically.
Instead, we must punish the organization in order to improve performance, reduce its resources in order to increase service, trash its reputation in order to restore confidence.
Left unaddressed was the dilemma we now find ourselves facing: How will we pull out of what will otherwise be a downward spiral in order to get us back to where we once were.
Yesterday the Mayor of West Vancouver was on the radio saying TransLink was a “failure”. Based on what?
He sounds decisive and determined, but it’s a bogus assessment. TransLink has faults and needs fixing, but overall, compared to other transit systems, using credible data and not anecdotes, it’s very successful.
When will the “failure” advocates put ridicule, emotion and anecdotes aside and lay out their metrics for success?
You cannot fight emotion with logic. This is politics, not academia.
The facts are there for all to see: Translink runs a great transit system. Now they have to win over people’s hearts.
The Yes side was playing defense the whole time. Defense may win championships, but it doesn’t win political campaigns. I’m disappointed in the mayors, being largely astute politicians, for having run a poor political campaign.
based on what?
Are you disingenous?
Probably on what the yes side have to say about Translink:
Take MLA David Eby: Unfortunately, the proposed tax and this referendum are poorly planned, and the revenue will go to a broken and wasteful administrator in Translink, an organization that has very limited, if any, democratic accountability
and go revisit the “Responses from MLAs” on this very blog, Not a single one was able to articulate a “yes” without pounding on TRanslink.
re-Listen Bill Tielleman talking of Translink on behalf of your very own coalition: a disaster!
Peter, why the “yes” side has fired Jarvis in the mist of the campaign?
…
It is time for the yes side to take full resposbability for this stunning defeat and Translink “bogus assesment”.
Then, it is time to accept the people verdict and more forward from there:
see more here
The only people who have take full responsibility for this debacle is the province. Why do people continue to blame the mayors for the provinces decision.
I just don’t get it.
Indeed.
In my view, the issue of finances should have never gotten out of hand. People focused on the issue…well…because everybody else focused on the issue. Even the transit advocates focused on finances, shouting “35 cents/day”.
https://257vancouver.wordpress.com/2015/07/03/diary-entry-why-transit-was-lost/
Sounds like you were having a conversation with Mayor Gregor. Was there anyone that didn’t and doesn’t criticize TransLink? Even the board fired their own CEO, effectively scoring an ‘own goal’ and the result was one-nil.
So they failed at PR. Now they’ll quintuple the budget for Communications and rose-tinted glasses while cutting everything else to the bone, deferring maintenance for a decade and laying off lot busloads of experienced staff.
That is not good management by any textbook.
Forgot to mention service cuts, you know, the very thing that will hurt the Naysayers the most.
Pete McMartin said in his Sun column today the No side may have won this battle, but will lose the war in the end. I agreed with his assessment.
The No side wants to change the way translink is governed. Unfortunately they see in the blame in the mayors who are not responsible for translink. They have fallen for the provinces tricks.
They already doubled the communications budget at City Hall. Didn’t seem to help. Joe Sixpack just will not be snowed.
2013, Global:
” …in the four years since Gregor Robertson and Vision Vancouver took over the city hall, the communications department has more than doubled to 22 employees.”
Maybe TransLink need to start calling meetings and striking committees to try and reduce the number of meetings and committees and managers and boards and various companies that they are overburdened with. Even the Siamese twin CEO Doug Allen says they have to look for efficiencies. No kidding Doug. TransLink must resist the overwhelming urge to be the employment shop for all and every urban transportation and social planner grad that shows up.
Privatization on a massive scale is called for. The Canada Line is under contract and this is what is needed throughout the bloated public works shop.
Wow Eric you never stop providing entertainment.
lol all the bus services are privatized, its called the coast mountain bus company.
What else do you want for privatization other than the 2 skytrains lol
Is that really going to solve all our problems?
Gordon,
It is highly offensive of you to brow-beat the 60% majority “No” voters for exercizing their democratic rights and voting their minds as requested to do by their government. Instead of resorting to sour grapes, why would you not acknowlede that the people have spoken, Translink has got to go in order to rebuild confidence, and demanding more and more money from citizens to cover up the mistakes of transportation service management is not a viable or fair solution to the problem? Why do you keep trying to hide the forest with the trees?
There does seem to be quite a few ungentlemanly gestures, coming from the losing side, towards blaming others for a democratic result, while arrogantly clinging to foolish beliefs that failed proposals will still be pursued. A tempestuous flare up of denial. Gregor personified this. He unseemly stamped his feet petulantly demanding that the funding for his train be given to him, from somewhere else that he could not imagine or describe.
Perhaps rest over the weekend will calm their overheated blood pressure and they will start to understand that the status quo is no more.
Anyone at TransLink would be well advised to seek counsel from a reputable employment placement agency. Many mayors ought to be thinking hard about spending more time with their families.
Punish and punish hard for the outcome of the ineptitudes. Throw out the lot at Translink and start over; attempting to merely patch a cancer is futile. (The same argument could be made for the Canucks’ mild attempts at change.) Cleaning house is the only way to restore confidence and work progressively toward new systems and efficiencies. Put simply, Translink has got to go.