Login / RegisterMetro Vancouver board pushes for $450 million a year increase in TransLink funding
Metro Vancouver directors voted today (September 25) to push for the best-case TransLink funding scenario.
Burnaby councillor Sav Dhaliwal was the only politician who voted against Vancouver mayor and director Gregor Robertson's motion.
Now the board will send the message to TransLink's private board of directors and its mayors' council that it should implement $450 million in annual funding above current levels—the most generous of the three options presented in TransLink's 2010 10-Year Plan to address funding constraints at the regional transportation authority.
The Metro motion originated through its regional planning committee earlier this month. At the latest meeting at Metro headquarters in Burnaby, directors also expressed concerns over the first business-as-usual “base plan” funding scenario proposed, which would lead to “drastic cuts”, according to TransLink.
TransLink CEO Tom Prendergast was at the meeting, and said he wanted to avoid the potential “chaos” the base plan would unleash on transit riders across the region.
Robertson said at the meeting that significant consultation had taken place to get to the Metro consensus. He said it was important that directors “don't fold tents now” and “remain united”. In response,
Corrigan said he understood why people would want to avoid cuts, but said the $450 million had to come from somewhere. The former B.C. Transit chair also cautioned that “there is a limit to what the taxpayer can expect”.
He said that, like with the discussions around the previous 10-year plan in 2004, there is a temptation to be overly optimistic on the accounting side. “We keep on supporting things; then we don't know how to pay for them.”
Surrey councillor and director Linda Hepner moved an amendment, which passed, that—in the event funding is constrained—priority be given to the northeast sector and areas south of the Fraser.
Corrigan added his own amendment, which stated: “Without additional funding any 10-year plan cannot be successfully implemented.” Corrigan's motion passed ahead of the main motion.
And for the life of me i can't understand derek corrigan's stance. against an increase in transit funding? of course it has to come from taxpayers, but to shirk out of big and painful choices like this shows a disappointing lack of vision...
Ӣ Yes, we have the highest transit fares in the country.
Ӣ Yes, we have the lousiest transit service in the country.
Ӣ Yes, we discriminate against students and only offer the U-Pass to some.
Ӣ Yes, we spend money on expanding transit sprawl to distant communities to lure more transit users here from out of province in order to increase transit use to justify our existence without improving existing transit which is over-crowded and inadequate.
Ӣ Yes, we operate diesel buses on trolley bus routes to save money in order to make up for the zillions lost due to our dumb transit expenditures such as the RAV Line to impress tourists for two weeks during the Olympics.
Ӣ Yes, we rip up reports damning us for putting people at risk due to the toxic diesel bus emissions on the 99 B-Line route.
Ӣ Yes, we ignore noise complaints when we purchase the wrong buses which are too loud for use in Vancouver.
Ӣ Yes, we hire high priced consultants to do our work for us because we are over-paid and don't know what we are doing.
Ӣ Yes, we lie about taking cars off the roads to win over the public; vehicle usage according to Statistics Canada has actually increased by 15% or by 90,000 vehicles from 1996 to 2006 in Vancouver.
Yes, we are incompetent and corrupt, give us more money!
"OH MY. No one's riding! We need more money!"
"OH CRIPES. Everyone's riding! We need more money!"
"Ridership has stayed the same! We need more money!"
I fully understand that the cost of socialized services must go up over time even if purely due to inflation, as do many Canadians. Many arent against socialized public transport, but against what appears to be the consistent ineptness and bungling of a corporation which comes crying for money every year, threatens to reduce service if its precise demands are not met, implements absurdly stupid things with said money (turnstiles!), votes its board absurd wages (leaving the poor drivers to suffer) and goes out of its way to flip off John Public. Since Translink basically tells anyone who protests it to bug off, the only recourse a lot of people feel they have is to vote with their coin-purse.
I'm no cheerleader of translink (road pricing and tolling should be done, like, now) but we could be doing a whole lot worse.
How worse? Like New York, where they lost $900 million from their capital budget from their subprime mortgage investing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/business/02global.html?pagewanted=4&_r=1
Or the hurt in Ottawa, where they signed off with Siemens with building LRT, cancelling the contract and then get sued by Siemens for $177 million. Then make new plans for LRT again, using a similar route.
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2007/06/06/siemens-lawsuit-070605.html
I’d like to see the RCMP investigate TransLink and the politicians who appear to be compromised in their questionable involvement with these developers. Burnaby Councillor Sav Dhaliwal, thank you for not being part of this apparent scandal involving crime, TransLink, politicians and developers.
Electric cars are set to make transit obsolete as far as reducing GHG emissions. Now is not the time to ostensibly invest in more transit to reduce GHG emissions when TransLink is really looking for money as a bail out for its RAV Line money sucking mistake. Let TransLink fold.
Like most things touched by the NDP and Glen Clark, the former disgraced NDP leader and crook, TransLink is a failure. TransLink is too corrupt and dysfunctional to continue without sinking the Lower Mainland into further "chaos" and debt.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/1999/08/21/clarkii990821.html
TransLink is a struggle between non-NDP voters, who are mostly non-transit users and who pay most of the taxes in the Lower Mainland for tax sucking mass transit, and NDP voters who want more and more mass transit for non-NDP voters to pay for their transportation needs. If NDP voters actually worked and paid taxes, they could have whatever transit they wanted, but since they don’t pay taxes, they’ll have to take what non-NDP votes are willing to give them. I expect that you vote NDP, too, Ed Turner.
I’m in favour of affordable and quality transit in the form of hybrid and trolley buses to benefit students and other low income transit users. I’m not in favour of filling the pockets of developers and politicians to make region look like Toronto especially when it looks more and more every day as if developers with ties to organized crime are behind all this Evergreen Line and other rapid transit nonsense.
"Not that hard" to avoid getting caught on SkyTrain? Come on...are you a B.C. Liberal shill pushing turnstiles for fun?
Try telling that "it's not that hard" line to His Worship, Mayor Gregor Robertson, who wasn't even avoiding a fare four years ago; he just forgot that you need two zones for a trip from Vancouver to Burnaby during the week. He got nailed to the tune of $173, a fine he disputed but ended up paying.
Transit cops are now everywhere. With or without expensive barriers, it is not easy to ride for free. You must know this if you've travelled Sky Train recently.
You have to promise me something: When your friend gets nailed for not having a ticket, will you tell me right away? Will you also tell me whether he's going to pay or dispute? And will you give me the court date and time if he disputes his ticket?
Over&Out,
Matt Burrows
We can make more 'Car2go' setups or we can eliminate the limit on taxi licences..maybe past a certain hour at night. You will see efficient and CHEAP transit.