The Province, October 6:
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The Sun, October 7:
The premier also brushed aside suggestions she’s leaving the region’s transit needs out to dry.
“I want to get TransLink fixed,” she said.
“I think we’ve got to fix TransLink so that people have confidence in the system, and once they have confidence in the system it will be easier for mayors to raise their one-third, I think. People didn’t say no to transit, they said no to TransLink, which is an organization they don’t trust, and they said no to new taxes.”
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The Leader, February 18:
(Premier Clark) deflected suggestions that the province must enact new reforms to TransLink to make it more accountable.
“Only the mayors – if there are problems that need to be addressed in TransLink – can fix those problems, because it’s not a provincially run organization,” Clark said Wednesday in Surrey.
“TransLink belongs to the mayors. These decisions belong to the mayors and they are the leaders of this.”
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The Province has their script: No new taxes without a referendum and no fundamental reform of TransLink and its appointed board. The responsibility for TransLink lies with the Mayors but they will get neither any real authority over transportation in Metro nor any new source of funding.
What will they get? Only the blame.
Our premier is such a chicken shit coward.
If I were the mayors I would just abandon dealing with this. Let this thing totally break so it can be rebuilt rather than limp along throwing bandaids on it.
… and yet, by totally breaking, you allow the option that this broken thing gets eliminated entirely – it failed after all. Also, the loss of public service between now and breaking would have a pretty catastrophic impact on the people who need transit.
I’m reminded of the manner of the transit strikes I witnessed in Holland – they didn’t shut down service the way a strike typically happens here, they made it free by refusing to take payment for X number of days … so the public remained entirely on their side (no pro-union solidarity required even). The public were incentivised to like transit more. The corollary here would be to incentivise the use of transit even more. I can’t help but note that the closings due to ‘police incidents’ of bridges recently has really received scant attention compared to any problems the skytrains have. What if there were more incidents on the highways which started creating an incentive for more to take transit?
Strategic deployment of almost (quickly becoming completely) broken cars anyone?