I described the Bateman Strategy back in August 2013:
… getting people to vote against their self-interest in order to effectively disable TransLink – and with it, the regional vision we have pursued for decades with considerable success.
The referendum offered an ideal platform to pursue that agenda – and the result, I expect, turned out even better than the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and the Province imagined. The reputation of TransLink was trashed, its expansion constrained and its future complicated and confused.
But there will be no relief in attacks on a still-leaderless organization, and I expect they will be relentless.*
However, it will be critical as TransLink falls into a cycle of decline that the organization still carry the blame. The next stage of the strategy will be the ensure that the consequences of defunding a necessary service – especially when maintenance is cut – not rebound on those responsible, especially as they call for further cuts.
To see how this might play out, look south – to see how the Republicans deal with Amtrak, the passenger rail agency faced with deteriorating service as the consequences of deferred maintenance and lack of investment in decaying infrastructure accumulate, almost on a daily basis.
From the New York Times:
Aging Infrastructure Plagues Nation’s Busiest Rail Corridor
“We’re seeing two trends converging in an extraordinary way,” said Thomas Wright, president of the Regional Plan Association, a research and advocacy group. “Ridership is hitting all-time highs on the Northeast Corridor at the same time that the system is just too brittle and does not have the ability to withstand heat waves, storms and other incidents.” …
The delays are not just miserable for the passengers stuck on the trains; they have a ripple effect, sending more traffic onto roads and wasting hours for commuters who could be working. The shutdown of the corridor for one day could cost the country $100 million in added congestion, productivity losses and other effects …
While President Obama is calling for $2.45 billion for Amtrak next year — about $1 billion more than the current year’s subsidy — Republicans in the House passed a bill in June to reduce spending on Amtrak by about $250 million.
On Friday, Representative Mario Diaz-Balart, a Republican from Miami and chairman of a House subcommittee on transportation, said Amtrak’s operations were vital, especially along the Northeast Corridor. He said the House measure fully funded Amtrak’s safety and operational needs, although it would trim capital grants and other funding. Mr. Diaz-Balart argued that Amtrak had a “slew of internal financial issues that no level of congressional funding can fix.”
“Amtrak’s leadership must reflect and determine how they can better manage their current funding to avoid these types of delays in the future,” he said in a statement.
That’s how it works: blame the agency for failing to deal with the consequences of defunding, even as further cuts are proposed, by not better managing its current level of funding – an amount that cannot accommodate growth in demand, which leads to further complaints, which are then used as the basis for further condemnation of the agency.
The strategy works best when there are no effective voices to defend the agency.
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* “TransLink CEO Job Posting Reveals Generous Pay Package.” Note that those quoted in this and other stories are not those who actually made the decision. Just as during the referendum, the board members of TransLink do not explain or defend the decisions they make that become the basis for public criticism.
That anonymity shouldn’t continue. Here they are (with bios here):
TransLink Board Members
Marcella Szel
Board Chair
Appointed: Jan. 1, 2012 (reappointed January 1, 2015)
Term Expires: Dec. 31, 2017
Barry Forbes
Vice Chair
Appointed: Jan. 1, 2011 (reappointed Jan. 1, 2014)
Term Expires: Dec. 31, 2016
Robin Chakrabarti
Appointed: Jan. 1, 2013
Term Expires: Dec. 31, 2015
Lorraine Cunningham
Appointed: Jan. 1, 2013
Term Expires: Dec. 31, 2015
W John Dawson
Appointed: Jan. 1, 2010 (reappointed Jan. 1, 2013)
Term Expires: Dec. 31, 2015
Brenda Eaton
Appointed: Jan. 1, 2014
Term Expires: Dec. 31, 2016
Linda Hepner
Gregor Robertson
Mayor of the City of Vancouver
Gregor Robertson was first elected Mayor of Vancouver in 2008.
Don Rose
Appointed: Jan. 1, 2011 (reappointed Jan. 1, 2014)
Term Expires: Dec. 31, 2016
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Disclosure: I was part of the process that led to the recommendation of most of these board members. And I offer Price Tags as a medium for them to make the case for their decisions – and what they believe is necessary to renew TransLink.
“TransLink CEO Job Posting Reveals Generous Pay Package….”
biased reading trying to absolve the mayors’ council of its responsabilities:
The South Coast British Columbia Transportation authoritity Act states
190.1.(4) The mayors’ council on regional transportation may, by resolution, approve or reject an executive compensation plan or an amendment to an executive compensation plan.
The mayors’ council also appoints the board members, which include 2 mayors…
Author
Who puts forth the executive compensation plan that the mayors may only approve or reject? More here: http://www.cloverdalereporter.com/news/318649001.html
By the same logic, you could explain that the President of the United Sates is powerless, since only the congress can put forth a bill of law…the President can just sign a bill into law.
By this token, having Trump in office could not a big deal after all: A politician, more than anyone else, should know it is not like it work.
In fact, the Translink governance can be seen working as the EU governance model. as mentioned here. In practice It works like it:
* The Mayors want to reduce the property tax, without warning (2012): Translink comply with it and put an alternative plan ( remember, it is normally up to Translink to put forward such proposal, potentially devastating for its operation, not the Mayors!)
* The Burnaby mayor doesn’t like the Burnaby Gondola, in spite of a positive business case, It disappears of the Translink radar
….
There is absolutely no reason it should be different with the executive compensation package. If the mayors disagree with it: they can reject it, …or shut up!
Maybe they should just hire a group of trained monkeys and pay them in peanuts. That’ll show those fat cats!
Phew! Who gets to be the boss? Is that really the issue?
Vancouver missed its opportunity to set up an integrated public transportation system about seventy years ago: Price Tags’ constantly be-moaning the boss or the “Bateman strategy“, i.e. the lost referendum doesn’t help.
Perhaps it may be said, to put the debate in perspective, Regional Vancouver is a heavily in-debt-ed, isolated, political, sprawling organism headed by various Mayors (not all are on board) reflecting a petulant me-too attitude rather than substantial reasons for billion-dollar investments.
Past regional growth, I was there, was essentially during the post WW ll years, or to be more precise, the years of THU AUTOMOBILE, of indiscriminate sprawl, the consequences of which civic administrations are struggling with to this day.
Those were halcyon years of growing population, growing incomes and mindless development the implications of which compound the issues of regional movement that yet various regional administrations have not a clue!
Times have not changed.
The city now, in early century twenty-fifteen, is different but the modus operando is the same. Population growth has stabilized, and large shopping nodes, Oakridge, Metro town etc. have grown beyond their market share resulting in massive parking areas needed to accommodate shoppers’ auto traffic from distant parts of the region.
That is the plan and that is wrong!
Similarly, centers of education, UBC, SFU, BCIT, Langara, like shopping nodes, taking students from distant parts of the region need to re-think their essential configuration!
UBC especially must re-figure incrementally across the region to service its students: SFU to a lesser extent already has a downtown presences: BCIT and Langara similarly.
Buenos Aires, a port city of similar size to Vancouver, yet much older, is worth a visit. A small under ground rail system Le Subte services the central area configured by traditional villages, San Telmo, La Boca, Ricoletta etc. I know from experience it works.
The key to a viable public transpiration system is the incremental village! Vancouver take note . . .
“Buenos Aires, a port city of similar size to Vancouver”
Buenos Aires (city): 2.9 million
Vancouver (city): 600,000
Buenos Aires (metro): 12.7 million
Vancouver (metro): 2.3 million
Vancouver a waterfront Metro 2.3M,
Buenos Aires a waterfront City 2.9M
Buenos Aires State 12.7M
Have you been to the Argentine Augstin? Perhaps if you were to expand your horizons beyond your resentful little back door you would be of more use to your city and self! Picky picky . . .
Vancouver a waterfront Metro 2.5M, 2700 sq. Km, density of 925 per sq. Km
Buenos Aires a waterfront City 2.9M, 203 sq. Km, density of 14,285 per sq. Km
They may be similar sized ‘political entities’ in similar geographic contexts, but in terms of the historical timeframes when the cities developed (pre/post automobile) and the overall density & urban form, the cities are not terribly similar. Transit viability increases pretty substantially when density is that high. Buenos Aires has much more similarities to medium sized European cities. Some in Vancouver would like to think of it as somewhat European, but our density and urban form (save for the peninsula) are closer to Denver or Seattle than they are to Buenos Aires.
Until the region (and it’s developers) find some density between SFH and ‘tower on podium’ (Montreal walk-ups, Brooklyn brownstones, etc.) further density increases in residential areas is going to be a tough sell.
I was born in Buenos Aires and my back door is, as far as I can tell, free of resentment.
Well then you should klnow better. BTW I was born in England’s major sea port but that does not mean I know everything about it . . .
I should know better than what?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partidos_of_Buenos_Aires#/media/File:Buenos_aires_province_numbered.png
“Buenos Aires, a port city of similar size to Vancouver” Yes it is, and you should know better than to mess with me!
I always chuckle when our local media sneer at La Senora de Kirchner deuda mentioning not a word about the Christy Clark debt!
I was there for only ten days staying in colourful La Boca, de Quinquela Martín. Every one of those days I would walk Avenida Defensa stopping to watch the Tango dancers in Plaza Dorrego, then on to Plaza Mayo and beyond: walk, cab, El Subte. I even tried to find my way around La masiva Abasto y Avenida Florida!
How old were you when last you saw BA? I was there, ten days, in 2006.
Puerto Madero . . . http://puertomadero.com/ . . . was well under way. If you were compos mentis and involved in the city of your birth I hope you have some sway in Vancouver’s planning circles.
The lesson for me, indeed Vancouver, was Puerto Madero: preserving and re-purposing the old warehouses and changing the docklands into a modern commercial/residential neighbourhood.
Work was well under way in 2006 on the estuary shores of La Rio de la Plata and could well be a waterfront inspiration for Vancouver: Vancouver’s sure as hell needs all the inspiration it can get!
PS Rio de la Plata, River of silver translated by the English as the River Plate: sometimes the English really piss me off!
I have to give credit to Roger, Puerto Madero is a great development. Olympic Village has elements of it scale wise, preserving and re-purposing the old warehouses is a great touch. We rip down anything here for the tower
Someone may read your writing, and be mislead that the referendum was part of an ‘agenda’ to trash the otherwise recently stellar reputation of TransLink, through a co-conspiracy by the Taxpay Fed and BC Gov’t. Hilarious.
That reputation was systematically self-destructed by TransLink long before the vote.
I think Min. Fassbender is correct that governance issues at TL must be resolved prior to the hiring of a new CEO. IMO the gov. issue at TL’s Mayors’ Council is similar to that at Metro Vancouver. We have elected officials on each Board who were not elected to those specific posts. Yes they were elected, but as Mayors and Council Members of each City/Municipality. None of them were elected by their constituents to be TL Mayors’ Council (or TL Board) members, or MV Board members.
We have over 3 years until the next set of municipal elections. Three years to find a way to create a system which has clear accountability and responsibility, and attempts (though it may be a futile exercise) to reduce the narrow-minded, provincialism which has brought down TL in the past (cough cough, Derek C…)
Perhaps a system where everyone running for Council must also declare whether or not they are also putting their name forward for a seat on the MV or TL Board. Then, during the campaign, in addition to convincing voters that they deserve your vote for city council, they must also explain why they would be a good MV or TL board member. On election day, voters cast their ballots for the Mayor and Council (6, 8 or 10 members), and also vote for their representatives on the two regional boards.
When the results are finalized, the Mayor and Council, and the highest vote-getters for the two regional Board, of those who have been elected to council, are the ones who represent the city/muni at MV and TL. So, let’s say on a nine-member council (Mayor + 8 council), you may have 15 candidates total, and 7 also declaring as MV candidates, and 6 declaring as TL candidates. Let’s say that the city sends 2 reps to the MV board and 2 to the TL board. Those four reps must be elected to the nine-member “regular” council, in order to be eligible for the regional boards. This retains the important link between the sitting council and the discussions at MV and TL, but ensures that the voters, not the Mayor or Council, have the say on who represents them at the regional level.