Regional Politicians Mull Political Oblivion
Well, here we go again!
“Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble“, the dreaded TransLink auto levy again has raised its ugly head. Here we have a largely incompetent transportation agency, which doesn’t run our transit system, which has absolutely no public scrutiny, and is in constant financial peril, demanding more taxpayer’s money. TransLink’s mission statements seems to be; “If it doesn’t work, let’s do it again and hope it works the nextAi??time.”Ai??and “To hell with the taxpayer“, either way I think it is time for TransLink to depart on the next train to oblivion because all these guys seem to do is want to plan forAi??very expensiveAi??SkyTrain, built in even more expensiveAi??subways and the organization seems unable to grasp the meaning of affordability.
There is aAi??general feelingAi??that the well paid bureaucrats whoAi??shuffle aroundAi??at TransLinkAi??think that everyone elseAi??is as well paid as they and fail to grasp the notion that many of the region’s taxpayers are maxed out. Economy just doe not exist in TransLink’s lexicon.
I have a message for TransLink:
“YOU HAVE BEEN SAT TO LONG HERE FOR ANY GOOD YOU HAVE BEEN DOING.Ai?? DEPART, I SAY, AND LET US HAVE DONE WITH YOU. IN THE NAME OF GOD, GO!.”
With the monies saved by the demise of TransLink, we could fund our regional transit system, though I doubt anyone is listening.
TransLink vehicle levy back on mayors’ agenda
By Jeff Nagel – Surrey North Delta Leader
Published: January 18, 2013A yearly levy on each vehicle registered in Metro Vancouver is once again being pursued by area mayors as a short-term solution to TransLink’s financial challenges.
A car levy has been on the books as a legal option since TransLink was formed but the province has blocked its actual use three times ai??i?? once when the NDP was still in power in 2001 and twice more in the past four years under the BC Liberals.
Now mayors ai??i?? increasingly frustrated with Victoria and insistent that fares, gas taxes and property taxes can’t be raised any higher ai??i?? will try again.
“There’s only one thing not tapped out and that’s the vehicle levy,” said Belcarra Mayor Ralph Drew.
“We have no other logical place to go,” said Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan, who estimates TransLink is short about $150 to $175 million a year to sustain current service levels, let alone find billions more for projects like new rapid transit lines in Surrey and Vancouver.
“It’s the most easily implemented short-term option people can discern to get through the problems that we’ve got.”
Mayors emerged from a closed-door meeting Friday proclaiming their unity on key issues and their determination to press the provincial political parties to commit to a solution ahead of the May 15 provincial election.
The TransLink mayors’ council intends to spell out its position in a discussion paper within two weeks and press both the government and opposition parties to respond.
Drew chastised Transportation Minister Mary Polak for late last year directing mayors to first come up with a vision for future spending before new controversial funding sources might be considered.
“The vision’s well laid out,” he said, adding all mayors feel Polak’s aim was to “rag the puck until after the election.”
The province has long preferred to see TransLink make more use of property tax instead of any source that might anger drivers.
Drew noted TransLink is automatically permitted to raise an extra three per cent each year from property taxes, which average $230 per Metro home.
“We’ve already made a significant, ongoing, compounding commitment via property tax dollars.”
Mayors also remain committed to exploring road pricing as a long-term source.
“We don’t know what that will look like,” Corrigan said. “Whether it’s congestion taxes in the downtown or additional tolls on bridges or road tolls. We don’t know what’s going to make logical sense yet, but we need some sustainable long-term source.”
Road pricing is seen as a mechanism that is at least tied to transportation and that could help control congestion and encourage motorists to try alternatives to driving.
It’s also held up by some mayors as a necessary discussion now that tolls on the Port Mann Bridge are causing some drivers to divert to free crossings.
Corrigan said a share of the carbon tax ai??i?? as proposed by the NDP ai??i?? is another option, or perhaps the next government may make an altogether different source available.
Both Corrigan and Langley City Mayor Peter Fassbender ai??i?? frequent adversaries on opposite ends of the political spectrum ai??i?? called it a productive meeting with strong agreement on the strategy.
“We need to keep the pressure on ourselves and the government and the opposition parties moving into the election campaign,” Fassbender said.
One precondition for any new deal with the province, both Fassbender and Corrigan said, is that it come with governance reform of TransLink that puts mayors back in charge of setting spending priorities, not just signing off on contentious tax hikes.
“We have very little to say in the governnace of TransLink and yet were told to go find funding options,” Pitt Meadows Mayor Deb Walters said. “Anytime we come up with options they get shot down. It’s extremely frustrating.”
A vehicle levy was last proposed ai??i?? and shot down ai??i?? in 2009.
It would have raised $150 million a year by charging an average of $120 per vehicle.
“You need to look at something you can implement quickly,” Fassbender said. “To me some sort of a vehicle charge starts to fall into that category.”
It could be replaced once a long-term source like road pricing arrives, he added.
According to University of Toronto researchers, Gilles Duranton and Matthew Turner – transit has essentially no effect on traffic volumes. Consequently, transit by TransLink in Vancouver does not reduce carbon emissions and road congestion. There is no basis to fund transit by TransLink, therefore:
U of T research paper on the efficacy of transit – 2009
http://www.economics.utoronto.ca/public/workingPapers/tecipa-370.pdf
Northwest transportation insights
http://daily.sightline.org/2011/12/14/study-more-roads-more-traffic/
Freeing up road space with transit has the same effect as building roads – attracting drivers – to effectively negate any reduction of vehicles on the roads from drivers taking transit. This paradox has foiled attempts by TransLink to reduce road congestion with spending on SkyTrain lines and frequent transit. Since the formation of TransLink in 1999, driving has not decreased and trips by drivers remained unchanged at 57% in 2011 (TransLink):
Metro Vancouver vehicle use from 1999 to 2011
http://habilisblog.com/cycling-and-transit-use-see-big-gains-in-metro-vancouver/
So, TransLink can forget about any future and unfair taxation of drivers to fund ineffective rapid bus transit (99 B-Line express service, for instance) and overly expensive SkyTrain transit. TransLink can build tram lines at grade to operate transit frugally and efficiently, instead.
To solve the funding shortfall at TransLink – executive, planning, and administrative positions at TransLink can be eliminated to save taxpayers up to about $100 million annually. “Further taxation of drivers” to fund more mediocre transit by TransLink which already spends about one-third more per revenue passenger than other transit organizations in the rest of Canada is not necessary:
Shirocca Consulting transit efficiency review of TransLink – 2012
http://translinkcommission.org/TransLink_Efficiency_Review_Mar_21-12_FINAL.pdf
To reduce transit costs, planning for transit can be done by the municipalities, and the Mayors‘ Council can set the priorities for transit. TransLink can be turned into the operator of transit to slash the wasteful spending of TransLink executives whose prime motivation is self preservation through the expansion of SkyTrain which the provincial government pulling the strings at TransLink has dictated.
More utter nonsense. Owning and operating an automobile costs an average of $9,000 a year. Road expansion is more expensive than even the most costly transit solution and has much less capacity than even inexpensive transit solutions. Drivers are discovering this on the Port Mann and Golden Ears. A vehicle levy or road pricing to fund transit is a less expensive option for everyone in the long run.
As far as the vehicle levy goes, politicians that have rejected it have passed into oblivion. Rejecting in in the face of broad regional support was one of the last acts of the last NDP governments under Ujjal Dosanjh before they got absolutely trounced. It doesn’t look like rejecting the levy has helped Clark at all. Cummings and the BC Conservatives tried to make political hay out of the gas tax increase. They are plummeting in the polls too.
Time to stop all this anti-transit rhetoric that has no basis in reality.
Zweisystem replies: Er…. Richard, you are in complete denial. The real problem with TransLink’s ongoing funding crisis is our light-metro system or more pointedly, we have built a premium priced mini-metro on routes that can’t support it, the result, the massive subsidies paid to support mini-metro rob the transit system of much needed monies. Bureaucrats and other “screw the taxpayer” lobbyists see road pricing as a hell of a lot of free money to spend on more next to useless mini-metro.
To claim that the Cummings Conservatives are flailing in the polls because there anti-road pricing/auto levy stand is beyond laughable. If a car levy or road pricing is implemented I predict that 60% of the regional politicians who supported it will be turfed out of office and the the levy/tax will be repealed after the next election cycle. Remember the HST fiasco.
TransLink and transit planning are in a mess and throwing more money will not solve a thing and will further exacerbate the situation.
@ Richard, a credible U of T research paper based on statistics and calculus stating that there is no difference between transit creating road space or road construction creating road space is rhetoric? As far as a driver is concerned, does he or she really care how the road space appeared? As the saying goes, if the road space is there, drivers will use it. How do you explain that no amount of money spent on transit ever reduces congestion?
You don’t have to tax drivers to pay for transit – you just have to end the SkyTrain boondoggle created to employ people who cost taxpayers $100 million annually (to do what?). Since “transit by TransLink” does not reduce traffic volumes – the logical thing to do is to make transit as efficient as possible to provide as much transit as possible – to avoid road taxes.
Tram lines allow you to do this. SkyTrain from day one was a blunder. Nobody in his or her right mind would build a transit system where almost every inch of track has to be elevated or buried to allow it to work at a huge expense when at grade transit is just as good or better.
The COV engineers who proposed SkyTrain in a tunnel to UBC have a conflict of interest (they sold out to TransLink to advance their careers and their continued employment and advancement depends upon the support of SkyTrain). They did not even mention the possibility of a tram line and made it appear as if transit at grade would tear up Broadway to ruin businesses along Broadway. This was a lie.
Engineers at the COV did not do their due diligence to do the necessary engineering to determine the demand for transit. At 4,000 pphpd in transit demand along Broadway, the subway idea borders on negligence.