Union urges Vancouver mayors to accept gas taxes to pay for more transit – so they can hire more union bus drivers
The the bus driver union wants regional mayors to vote to increase property taxes to pay for light metro, mainly for Vancouver, comes as no surprise; the light-metro philosophy needs more buses and bus drivers to feed the hugely expensive metro lines. With much cheaper LRT because it can serve more destinations, doesn't such need a vast bus system to feed as light metro system does.
What is politely forgotten by our batch of transit planners is that when modern LRT replaces bus routes, it increases efficiency and productivity. What has been found in Portland and elsewhere, is that when a bus route is converted to a tram/streetcar operation, it became 6 to 8 times more efficient than the old bus operation. To put it another way, one tram/streetcar (1 driver) is as efficient as 6 to 8 buses (6 to 8 bus drivers) and for every tram or bus operated, one needed a minimum of 3 people to manage, maintain, and operate them and with wages accounting to over 70% of operating cost of a transit system, the saving by using tram/streetcar on busy routes is quite high!
The article mentions that the Broadway route sees 110,000 boardings each weekday, which roughly translates into 55,000 actually people using buses on Broadway (most bus users board the buses twice, inbound and outbound). Moving 55,000 people a day on Broadway has stretched bus service to the max, yet installing a modern LRT/streetcar line on Broadway could carry the same amount of ridership using a minimum of one sixth the amount of vehicles greatly reducing the operational costs on the route.
Please note: A modern tram, with a capacity of 250 persons, running at 4 minute headways (15 trips per hour) has a capacity of 3750 persons per hour per direction; two car trains could double this to 7,500 pphpd, more than enough to cater to transit demands on this route and without using additional drivers.
Example: If 100 buses (both trolley and B-Line) are needed on Broadway to move transit customers in peak hours, then only 17 modern trams are needed. To put another way, only 17 tram/streetcar drivers are needed instead of 100 bus drivers.
One can easily see why the transit union wants the expensive SkyTrain/light-metro status quo and increasing property taxes to pay for an inefficient metro system that requires many more drivers doesn't bother them at all.
Union urges Vancouver mayors to accept gas taxes to pay for more transit
The car proposed for use on the Evergreen SkyTrain line.
Photograph by: Vancouver Sun, Handout
The unions representing transit workers are urging Metro Vancouver mayors to accept TransLink's proposed funding supplement plan — including a two-cents-a-litre boost in gas taxes — to pay for transit projects such as the 11-kilometre Evergreen Line.
A City of Vancouver staff report is also recommending approval of the plan, while the Vancouver Board of Trade is polling residents on what they think of the higher fuel tax for transit projects, just days before the mayors vote on it.
The mayors' council on regional transportation will vote Friday on the proposal, which also calls for potential property-tax increases in 2013-14 if alternative funding sources such as road-congestion charges or a vehicle levy can't be secured to pay for future transit projects.
Burnaby, Richmond, North Vancouver District, Delta and Langley Township have said they will probably vote against the plan, which would generate $70 million annually. Surrey, Vancouver and the Tri-Cities are expected to support it.
The vote is weighted, with Surrey, Burnaby, Richmond and Vancouver holding the most votes because of the size of their municipalities. If the plan is accepted, the province will then have to change legislation to allow the increase in the gas tax funding, while negotiations will continue with the government on other long-term funding sources.
Don MacLeod, president of the Canadian Auto Workers Local 111, said the funding is a "small step forward" to meeting the needs of transit riders in Metro Vancouver, by adding 415,000 service hours — a seven-per-cent increase — to bus and SeaBus service by 2014, in addition to getting the Evergreen Line built.
The plan includes major improvements to SkyTrain stations at Metrotown, Main Street, Surrey Central and New Westminster and the Lonsdale SeaBus terminal; a new B-Line along King George Highway from White Rock to Guildford; more bus routes in south Surrey and Langley; Highway 1 rapid transit from Langley to Lougheed station; and road and cycling improvements.
"We're so buried, in the bus system, that any additional services will help," MacLeod said, noting that drivers are constantly passing up riders across the region. "Ridership continues to increase but we haven't put any additional services into buses in some time."
The City of Vancouver is pushing for rapid transit along the Central Broadway corridor to the University of B.C., noting Broadway has the second-highest concentration of employment in the region and the province, second to the downtown core, and is among the busiest bus corridors in North America with more than 110,000 boardings each week day.
The report also says that while there may be a property-tax increase in 2013, it is only a temporary fallback option.
The Evergreen Line, which has been in the works since 1989, was supposed to be operational by 2014. The project has been stalled as TransLink has been unable to come up with its $400-million share of the project, which is being built jointly with the provincial and federal governments.
ksinoski@vancouversun.com
