Poll reveals support for new TransLink funding sources

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      A new public opinion poll suggests there is support for TransLink tapping in to new funding sources but disagreement over where exactly that money should come from.

      Insights West, a marketing research company, conducted the online survey of 441 adults from Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley in early March.

      The poll reveals 72 percent of the respondents favoured some mix of service cuts and new funding sources for the financially challenged transportation authority while 12 percent supported simply reducing services and 16 percent were not sure where they stand.

      The pollsters also asked for opinions on several potential funding options. These include increasing fares, property taxes, or sales tax, as well as introducing a regional carbon tax, a vehicle levy, a new fuel tax, new road or bridge tolls, or a tax on vehicles based on annual distance travelled.

      While no single proposal was favoured by a majority of respondents, the highest level of support was for increasing transit fares, at 37 percent. However, the idea was less popular among the segment of respondents who use TransLink services most frequently.

      There was also 36 percent support for new tolls, 33 percent for a vehicle levy, and 26 percent for both a carbon tax and a distance-based vehicle tax. Increasing sales tax received the least amount of support at 17 percent.

      TransLink has an annual operating budget of $1.36 billion and receives most of its revenue from fares, fuel taxes, and property taxes.

      The Insights West poll has margin of error of 4.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

      Comments

      10 Comments

      Vancity Nizzy

      Mar 26, 2013 at 5:27pm

      As the son of a driver and a decade-plus long daily transit rider, it is my, I dare say somewhat well-informed, opinion that the majority of riders would actually agree on one service which they would tolerate and even welcome cuts to, and that is the deployment of Fare Enforcement Officers AKA "Transit Cops". Never has a troupe of failed sociopaths been paid so much over-time to perform such a sustained assault on the dignity of common people.

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      Natty

      Mar 26, 2013 at 6:43pm

      I support a funding increase- slash the salaries of the Translink "executives" and maybe fire a few for good measure. Only worth a couple million or so, but it's a place to start.

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      Forest

      Mar 27, 2013 at 9:27am

      Natty's right. Translink's previous "Director of Sustainability" , paid well in excess of 6 figures, is now thankfully gone. I'm sure there are many more Directors that can be jettisoned as well.

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      ubc

      Mar 27, 2013 at 10:02am

      New funding model is needed, there are many transit projects that can't be started because of lack of funds. Skytrain to UBC via Broadway, Skytrain to Surrey etc etc

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      independence and honesty would help

      Mar 27, 2013 at 12:15pm

      Here are a few ideas:

      1 - kill translink or at least gut it, cap salaries, and return to an elected board and open meetings. Translink planning seems to consist of rubber stamping (at great costs) poorly thought out plans given to it from Victoria.

      2 - forget about skytrain and automated metro and move to LRT technologies regardless whether you want an at grade, elevated, underground, or mixed system.

      3 - if there is any way to reverse the stupidity of the faregates, do so.

      4 - do not increase fares. External benefits of increased ridership indicate that if anything reductions in fares would be more economically beneficial overall (this suggest regional taxation is a better funding model than fees for use).

      5 - include honest alternatives to addressing ridership needs such as parallel route improvements not simply single route expansion

      6 - seek out truly independent analysis when evaluating expansion options

      7 - provide all the underlying data used and improve transparency

      8 - rethink the current strategies. Transit expansion and success requires rezoning, density, and traffic management. Density does not just mean islands and corridors. You can increase density accross multiple sites thus distributing ridership pressure and spreading network improvement accross the region. This reduces capital costs and increases efficiency of existing infrastructure. Spreading density also means more gradual impacts on neighborhoods and better livability. Rezoning should reflect the need for a urban environment that gives people more options for living near potential destinations and reducing commuting overall. Rather than force or encourage more centralized commercial hubs we would benefit from distributed office and commercial space in and throughout (more) neighborhoods so that more options for living close to work and recreation exist without building towers and urban canyons. This is also more amenable to the use of frequent service networks. Succesful transit expansions view the reduction in road capacity as an element of success not a detriment. This should be taken into consideration when evaluating surface use and allocation of road use.

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      Transit Pigs At the Troughs

      Mar 27, 2013 at 12:57pm

      Why is the answer always throw more good money after bad at the grossly mismanaged Translink?

      First restructure cut all the waste grossly overpaid Management, Board & Private Police/Security Force & useless 50K+ per year 'Green Jacket' so called employees.

      Than when a coherent sustainable operating plan is in place look at further funding.

      Why would any sane citizen want their cost of living to increase via more property tax, Road Tolls that will make going to work & food more expensive?

      Why so that the Pigs at Translink can piss away more of our Ca$h? Like useless Fare Gates @ $170 Million +!!!

      News Flash you can install fare gates for 10% of that cost fucking translink morons.

      I say Fuck No! Fuck these mismanaged assholes reduce the waste than we will talk about further funding.

      Zweisystem

      Mar 27, 2013 at 1:32pm

      The problem with TransLink and transit is that you have 1950's style bureaucrats planning for 1950's style rapid transit. It is like reequipping the VPD with EDSEL's - car 54 where are you kind of stuff.

      SkyTrain is obsolete, no one builds with it anymore and the reason it is obsolete, modern LRT made it obsolete.

      Now you can built LRT in a subway like Vienna, but with light rail you still retain the ability to build it on lesser quality of rights-of-ways.

      Modern LRT has also more capacity than Skytrain and to claim that a subway has more capacity than LRT, must be substantiated with full disclosure of station design. The Canada Line, is a heavy rail subway, built as a light metro and operates in a subway in Vancouver with station platforms designed for 2- 1/2 car trains, thus giving the Canada Line the dubious distinction of the only metro/subway in the world designed to have less capacity than a streetcar!

      There is a reason why TransLink needs more money and its called SkyTrain, yesterday's rapid transit built to service the electoral needs of Vision Vancouver and the BC Liberals.

      Rico

      Mar 27, 2013 at 2:54pm

      Zeisystem,
      If only life were so simple and the sky always blue and lolipops grew from the ground. You love to mix and match stats to support your position but rarely look at a total picture. Just because LRT in Karlseruhe can have at capacity greater than 26,000pphpd in a pedestrian only mall with no traffic conflicts with an average speed of 13km/hr does not mean that LRT on Broadway, or Cambie or the Expo line could achieve the same (or do you want your transit going 13km/hr? That would be a fun comute from Surrey to Vancouver....). Now if you are going to build a LRT subway you better know what your market is going to be, because a LRT subway requires a larger tunnel and that cost more money...so unless you have a significant section where you can save money by being at grade (without compromising quality and reliability) you may as well just go subway (mini-metro, metro, skytrain, whatever). That is why most recent LRT projects in North America are MORE expensive than our recent Skytrain extensions (grade seperation for LRT seems to cost more and most recently built sections have significant grade seperation). By the way, when the Expo line upgrades are finished it will have a capacity of greater than 25,000pphpd, I am highly sceptical that a non-grade seperated system could achieve that on the Expo corridor (so good thing they built it as skytrain so they would not need to build a new system to replace the LRT because it is at capacity). So a system like Karlseruhe can achieve greater than 26,000pphpd in a pedestrian environment without vehicle conflicts at an average speed of less than 15km/hr but with vehicle conflicts and the need for higher speeds a more realistic upper limit for non-grade seperated LRT in Vancouver is 20,000pphpd and that is pushing it.
      As to Skytrain being the source of Vancouvers budget woes...I think any comparison with your favourite poster boy Portland comes out hugely favourable to Skytrain. Skytrain capital costs are LESS per boarding/passanger, Skytrain has an operational surplus, Portland Max. recovers less than 50% of its operational costs. With the exception of Calgary Skytrain costs look great against every other light rail system in North America and the operating costs look great against other systems around the world. This does not mean we should build Skytrain everywhere, but it works were we did.

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      spin Rico spin

      Mar 27, 2013 at 8:37pm

      hiding behind numbers again...

      some advice: disclose who pays you to take so much interest in Skytrain.

      I'm sure you've changed tires in some pretty hairy places, but you still avoid the fact that Skytrain technology is a Yugo in an all Chevy town.

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      guy

      Apr 9, 2013 at 12:58pm

      Rico hits the nail on the head. LRT advocates love to pick and choose numbers which favor their ideological position. They take the costs of a streetcar and combine it with the ridership of a grade-separated LRT. When you look around the world, skytrain performs very well. Considering this infrastructure could be around for 100 years (look at New York's amazing system), why not just build it right in the first place, instead of building some flimsy little system that'll reach capacity immediately and we'll have to rebuild later. The upfront capital costs are not all that should be considered.

      Also, it bothers me that people always immediately suggest "slashing the pay" of the top executives. Be careful what you ask for - these salary costs are a drop in the bucket that is the total budget and they may ensure we get better executives. People complain the top execs are "incompetent", well, dramatically reducing their pay is certainly not going to improve their performance. We'll end up with real hacks who could make some blunders which cost us some real money.

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