What’s top of mind for Iain Black (president and CEO of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade), writing in Business In Vancouver, when he reviews 2016 and scopes out 2017?
Why, it’s transportation. And a big focus on the rapid kind.
A few months later, we released our landmark study, Greater Vancouver Economic Scorecard 2016, which measured our region against 19 other metro areas – our competitors – across the globe. ….Iain Black
Scorecard 2016 taught us that our region’s transportation challenges are exacerbating housing affordability, undermining our ability to attract top-end talent and hampering our role as Canada’s Pacific gateway. Fortunately, this past year was a pivotal one, in which all three levels of government have taken steps to help alleviate congestion after years of under-investment in transit and transportation.
One of the key steps forward for our region was the roll-out of Phase 1 of the mayors’ 10-year vision, along with TransLink galvanizing its support around the leadership of its new CEO, Kevin Desmond. After three decades of planning, the long-awaited Evergreen Extension opened in 2016, connecting the downtown core with residents and businesses across the region.
These major breakthroughs all required a strong regional voice; a voice made up of local governments, community organizations, business groups and the public. This single voice can only be achieved through co-operation and a vision that rejects the pseudo-mercantilism that has plagued our region and by embracing the idea that what is good for one municipality is good for our region as a whole.
True global cities think regionally to attract the best people and investors, and it is time Greater Vancouver did the same. 2016 was a first step in the right direction.
As we move into 2017, we have even more crucial decisions ahead of us. Phase 2 of the mayors’ plan, a crucial provincial election and the destiny of the federally proposed Canadian infrastructure bank will all be important crossroads that determine our region’s future.
These people are far too close to the issues, often implicated in the issues, to make a valid decision: i.e. Global city? Is Vancouver a global city? Local egos and jobs rely on upon the answer. Anyway what is a Global City? WAS and IS are a debateable point!
Watch out for Phase 2.
“Moving forward on these projects requires funding commitments from the Federal and Provincial governments, as well as additional regional revenue sources.”
The Federal government has bumped up their funding commitment by 50%, from 33% to 50% of the total costs but Translink is still looking and hoping to squeeze more money out of your pocket in new and different ways.
Translink already gets money from Property Taxes, Fuel Taxes (24% of their total funding!), Parking Taxes, Bridge Tolls and 32% from transit fares. Yet roads and bridges cost only 8% of their expenditures.
Just around 40% of their revenue comes from drivers and they only spend 8% on the roads and the bridges. No wonder the Patullo Bridge is in such a pathetic shape! No wonder the Knight Street Bridge is such a dangerous place at all entrances and exits. No wonder the Second Narrows and the road leading up to the Upper Levels is such a pain.
They get 32% of their earnings from transit fares and spend 60% of their money on transit operations.
They only spend one fifth (20%) of what they get from drivers on the roads.
They spend double (200%) of what the get from passengers fares on transit, which mostly comes from suffering drivers.
This is a massive and unbalanced difference. No wonder people constantly complain about traffic congestion. The philosophy at Translink is that congestion regulated the traffic and traffic is inherently bad, so all the traffic jams are OK.
Watch out for Phase 3. That’s when they hope to get hundreds of millions more by monitoring and charging for every inch of road anyone drives on.
Remember this next time you vote for any municipal politician, for it is they that make up the Mayors’ Council and the TransLink Board.
They are quite proud of it all and publish these figures here:
http://buzzer.translink.ca/2013/03/translink-101-where-does-translink-get-its-funding-and-how-do-we-spend-it/
Pattullo is currently being rehabbed and is slated for replacement (under your much maligned Phase II investment). Second Narrows is a Provincial/Federal responsibility, not TransLink.
TransLink cost recovery is about 52%. With the exception of TTC (Toronto), GO Transit (Toronto) & BART (San Francisco), there are essentially no other operators with cost recovery greater than 60% in North America. Not a single one in North America is above ~75%. Transit provision in North America is a cross-subsidized form of transportation; you can dislike that, but it’s a fact.
You make significant noise about the share of funding from different sources….what alternative would you propose that takes the burden off of ‘drivers’? When outlining a viable proposal for discussion, please keep in mind that voters did not agree to a sales tax increase, and fare rates are slated to increase by more than inflation every year for ~10-years under the Phase I plan.