As Predicted – TransLink’s Gas Tax is Faltering – Higher Taxes Predicted!

As predicted, gas tax revenue has failed to meet expectations as thousands of lower mainland residents fill up their family chariots east of Aldergrove or in the US, where gas is much cheaper. This was predicted by Zwei some years ago (the wife fills up her belch-fire in Point Roberts) and was roundly criticized by politicians and bureaucrats alike. The collected response by our hapless crowd of politicos was something like; “We hope this will not happen.”

Ha, ha, ha it has!

Vice Chair of the Mayors Council on TransLink, Langley’s Mayor Fassbender,Ai??seems surprised at this, well he shouldn’t as the regions taxpayers are paying far to much taxes for far to little transit service. We have a good example in Tsawwassen where preciousAi??transit monies are squandered on three bus services which combined carry fewer than 20 passengers a day! Of course the biggest wastrel of tax dollars is the SkyTrain and Canada Line mini-metro systems, where massive debt servicing costs and large operating costs have creates a terestrial black hole for tax dollars.

Until regional mayors understand the real reasons of the mass exodus of car drivers to the upper Fraser Valley or the USA to fill up their cars with gas, threatening new and higher taxes willAi??do nothing more than enrage taxpayers as they will again feel like hostages to the profligate spending by transit bureaucrats and inept regional politicians takin a back seat on badly planned and poorly transit projects .

Again, its high time that Municipalities south of the Fraser should abandon TransLink and its huge costs and form a leaner and meaner transit authority for transit projects that are both affordable and usable. With TransLink, the end game is SkyTrain and how many bus riders they can recycle on the the mini-metro to pretend that they are doing a good job and to hell with the taxpayer.

Falling gas tax continues to plague Translink: Mayor
VANCOUVER/CKNW AM(980)
Janet Brown |

More bad news for Translink: Gas tax revenue continues to freefall.

The latest estimates suggest the transportation authority will end up with millions fewer than it expected from the 15-cent-a-litre fuel tax it charges in Metro Vancouver.

Originally, $30-million was needed to fund projects like a rapid bus service over the new Port Mann Bridge.

But now, Peter Fassbender, Langley city mayor and vice-chair of the mayors’ council to Translink, believes Translink will likely have to find close to $75 million.

A big part of the reason? Gas tax revenue will continue to drop significantly.

More and more people, he says, are purchasing gas in the Fraser Valley where the gas tax isn’t applied, as well as in the U.S.

Fassbender says only a huge raft of savings uncovered by auditors will allow the region to move ahead with transit projects.