TransLink stumbles on
Liz James, who writes for the North Shore news, is one of the very few columnists that who has both researched the regional transit issue and understands transit issues.
As TransLink CEO Ian Jervis, is busy shilling for the very expensive Evergreen Line, he refuses to look a cheaper alternatives, such as light rail. SkyTrain has become a vast bureaucratic pork barrel, where the taxpayer is expected to anti up at Translink's whim. A time of reckoning is soon coming as the regional taxpayer is maxed out and well heeled bureaucrats and politicians just don't seem to comprehend the financial stress the regional taxpayer is under.
If the Evergreen Line is built, Zwei wagers that TransLink will split in two, those with SkyTrain and those who do not, then let the fun begin as the financial realities of a metro only building policy.
No more blood in this stone
"The Mayors' Council and the province have agreed on a funding formula for the plan that includes a 2 cent per litre increase in motor vehicle taxes in April 2012 plus, by 2013, either a property tax increase averaging about $23 per year for the average Metro Vancouver residential property, or a new long-term source of funding."
July 6 TransLink
media release
HOW SWEET IS THAT?
Five days after the latest carbon tax increase, West Vancouver Mayor Pam Goldsmith-Jones announced the decision of the Mayors' Council on Regional Transportation as to how TransLink will fund the region's share of costs for its updated Moving Forward plan – one of two options it first presented in November 2010.
Not a word about regional inequity or value for dollars.
No hint of walking the talk on last year's complaint by City of North Vancouver Mayor Darrell Mussatto to News reporter Benjamin Alldritt that TransLink proposed to build "a Lamborghini" on the Evergreen route "when a Chevy will do."
At the time, North Shore mayors said they opposed the proposals "unequivocally" because both options were based on the premise that funding would come from increased property taxes, and because, as Mussatto told Alldritt, the way the province had structured TransLink was "an absolute disaster."
Sad to say time and the beguiling nature of B.C.
Transportation Minister Blair Lekstrom found a way to cure regional intransigence. So much so that, following council's July 6 announcement, Lekstrom said he wanted "to thank all of the people involved – the Mayors' Council and in particular the chair, Mayor Richard Walton, and vice-chair Mayor Pamela Goldsmith-Jones for all of their efforts."
How nice; the triumvirate must have been bowled over by all that talk of Moving Forward with the increased SeaBus service promised in the more expensive of the two proposals.
I've lost count: How many times have we heard that?
Does anyone really believe that once property taxes have been raided, or vehicle levies are imposed to fund decisions of the disastrous structure, they will ever be rescinded? If so, I have a few – tolled – bridges to sell.
Talking of tolls: If ever TransLink decides to run with the latest chatter and tolls every bridge in the region, any North Shore resident who works beyond the Port Mann Bridge will pay two tolls, each way.
In the first three weeks of this month we have been hit with the HST referendum package, the latest carbon-tax hike and increased Hydro rates.
Fortis BC wants more out of our pockets, and BC Ferries CEO David Hahn and two members of his board of directors think it's OK to ding us nearly $750,000 a year for their pensions.
Small comfort to hear that the me-too ICBC folks are "working hard" to avoid the rate increases it is asking the B.C. Utilities Commission to approve; because we know how that story will end.
Goldsmith-Jones and her Mayors' Council colleagues would do well to heed the public sentiment behind the premier's on-again support for the gas-tax increase, and tell Minister Lekstrom there is no more blood in the stone.
The council should then hire an unbiased transportation consultant to figure out how the longpromised Evergreen Line can be built with the "money we have on the table," to quote an off-again-on-again former city mayor.
If the council and/or TransLink will not do it, North Shore residents might consider mimicking their Fraser Valley neighbours and pool some resources to hire their own apolitical transportation consultant to cost out the transit alternatives. My $100 is on the table to get the ball rolling.
Given the will, a report could be ready before Christmas.
As for funding:
If drivers left their vehicles at home TransLink would collapse. It has insufficient rolling stock to cope with the influx of passengers and without gas-tax revenues, TransLink and the province would drown in red ink.
Update:
News came down last Friday that some Metro directors are standing up to the TransLink board. Annoyed at having their agenda and property-tax ability slammed against the wall by a 62-page report they received only 24 hours before the meeting, Metro chairwoman, Delta Mayor Lois Jackson, led the charge by asking for more time to consider the report.
TransLink CEO Ian Jarvis refused, saying the document had to be presented to the TransLink commissioner by July 31.
So who is in charge – the elected politicians who tax us, or dictatorial provincial appointees?
rimco@shaw.ca
Are modern streetcars the future?
Due to the small backlash to TransLink’s tax increases that were announced on Wednesday, the pro-LRT and pro-streetcar groups were out today promoting surface rail on CTV News as being cheaper and a fitting tribute to a past.Ai??Ai??
http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110708/bc_interurban_tram_110708/20110708/
Are modern streetcars the future?
Vancouver’s interurban train system — the first in Canada — started in 1910, and went from the downtown core into south Vancouver, Richmond, Burnaby, New Westminster, Surrey and Langley.
By: ctvbc.ca
Date: Friday Jul. 8, 2011 5:20 PM PT
With too many cars on the road and gas prices creeping higher, the streetcar system of years past may be the answer for Vancouver’s transportation future.
A UBC professor of landscape architecture thinks the time is now or never for Metro Vancouver to implement a low-cost, environmentally friendly and modern streetcar system.
“The problem for TransLink is they already have a 50-year commitment to the system of buses on the one hand and SkyTrain on the other, so I sympathize. It’s very difficult for them to insert a whole new technology, but I think if we don’t do it during this decade, we will never do it and we’ll miss an opportunity,” Patrick Condon told CTV News.
In the midst of a proposed two-cent gas tax increase to fund the high-priced Evergreen Line, Condon believes the streetcar system would be a better value as well.
“SkyTrain along the corridor here is $200 million per kilometre,” he said, “whereas the modern tram could be put in for $20 million per kilometre.”
At one time the streets of Vancouver were interlaced with streetcar lines, and even the outlying communities all the way out to Chilliwack were connected by passenger rail.
Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts wants streetcars to connect her community to decrease traffic congestion, and says more buses alone won’t do it.
“If all you’re going to do is add buses and continually add buses, which we’ve had in Surreyai??i??you’re congesting the roadways,” she said.
But TransLink says rapid transit is more of a priority than community rail these days.
“Everybody wants to go fast; it’s just a matter of how much you want to spend,” Condon said.
With a report from CTV British Columbia’s Lisa Rossington
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=139991&page=416Ai??
|
Although I understand that there are places that can use LRT or streetcar, it’s also worth noting the tradeoffs between types that prevent their use elsewhere. For major corridors like Evergreen and Broadway, road space for LRT and streetcar tracks and stations is already limited without removing / narrowing critical road lanes and sidewalks and thereby causing traffic jams on nearby important roads; alternatively, property acquisition costs to widen these corridors may be prohibitively expensive. In addition, the surface running of trains can make them significantly more prone to disruption from traffic jams, accidents, bad car drivers and jaywalkers unless more protection is added at extra cost. Due to their interactions with the street, trains will also need drivers and cannot follow each other as closely, which reduces the frequency, speed, and resulting capacity at which the network can be run. As you can see, the story in the end is not as rosy: streetcars and LRT may look nice and be cheap to build on paper, but they offer few other compelling advantages that would recommend their use in more demanding situations. This is why Vancouver plans to only run its streetcars around downtown on side streets as a complement to the SkyTrain system. Again, I’m not completely against streetcars or LRT, but there are reasons why SkyTrain, despite being more expensive, has been built alongside many major corridors, and there are also reasons why TransLink and its advisers don’t easily bend to desires and instead have to look through all the options before recommending any system type for any given route. |
The comments on the above Skyscraper forumAi??panel & the public responsesAi??in theAi??link to theAi??CTV article are pretty typical of theAi??illthought outAi??comments published by the retarded inhabitants of metro Vancouver.
- Ai??…he should take a look at the cost of the new West LRT Calgary is currently building. Almost the same cost at Skytrain….but with higher ongoing costs because it requires drivers.Yes, LRT is cheap if the rail is already there, and if you don’t need to build elevated or underground segments. However, that is not practical in a city unless it runs along highways that already intersect cities (ie….the efficient parts of Calgary’s LRT). The rest of the LRT in Calgary is a nightmare…..look at downtown.
- …the surface running of trains can make them significantly more prone to disruption from traffic jams, accidents, bad car drivers and jaywalkers unless more protection is added at extra cost. Due to their interactions with the street, trains will also need drivers and cannot follow each other as closely, which reduces the frequency, speed, and resulting capacity at which the network can be run.
The Delta Optimist gets it!
Somebody gets it!
By building light metro, in the guise of SkyTrain, the taxpayer has spent three to four times more money than a light rail alternative, to get three rather mediocre transit lines. Cut through the hype and hoopla, SkyTrain and the Canada Line's ridership is made up mostly of recycled bus passengers (TransLink claims 80% of SkyTrain's ridership first take a bus to the metro), forced to transfer from bus to metro. There is very little evidence of a modal shift from car to metro and the promised 200,000 car trips a day taken off the road by the Canada line has been quietly forgotten.
We just cant afford doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.
The region, and that includes TransLink, must rethink how it plans for 'rail' transit and discard the many LRT myths that it has created. The taxpayer is maxed out and I am glad to see this editorial reflecting fiscal reality, instead of repeating TransLink's flim-flam.
We need to invest in transit we can afford.
Look at the big transit picture
Everyone wants it, but nobody wants to pay for it.
And so goes the perpetual debate over funding transit in Greater Vancouver, with the Evergreen Line and other improvements proposed by TransLink being the latest to undergo the third degree from regional politicians last week.
All the usual cards – vehicle levies, increased taxes on gas, property and parking, tolls and higher fares – are thrown on the table as disagreements continue over how to finance the projects most agree we desperately require.
Make no mistake, whatever is chosen will be unpopular, but if we deem the infrastructure necessary, we need to find a way to pay for it. Having said that, rather than seeking out the fairest, or least politically damaging, way to extract more from overburdened taxpayers, shouldn't greater attention be paid to the rapid transit system itself?
The biggest problem I see is the province and the transportation authority are married to the prohibitively expensive SkyTrain system, which has expanded about as quickly as a supermodel's waistline. It's taken a quarter-century to build three lines on a network that doesn't even begin to service the whole region, keeping thousands and thousands of people in their vehicles every day because rapid transit doesn't come anywhere close to their homes.
I know I've beaten on this issue before, but if we continue to hitch our wagon to SkyTrain, it's inevitable that we're going to have these funding predicament discussions for decades to come.
That's not to say any type of rapid transit comes cheaply, but the one we've got ourselves wed to is one we don't appear to be able to afford. If we could, we'd have a heck of a lot more track in place than what we do after 25 years.
Rather than trying to extract more blood from a stone in this and what will undoubtedly be subsequent debates over transit funding, I think Lower Mainland mayors, as well as our provincial politicians in Victoria, need to take a critical look at the bigger picture.
SkyTrain is fantastic if you're lucky enough to live near it, but this elevated system is just too expensive. If we keep up the current pace, and it appears we might not have the cash flow to even do that, we'd add a whopping three lines in the next quarter century.
Fifty years in and we're not even close to bringing rapid transit to all areas of the Lower Mainland? That hardly seems like the road, elevated or not, we should be following.
http://www.delta-optimist.com/news/Look+transit+picture/5107185/story.html
News Flash – TransLink trying to pull a fast one? Updated!
Well the masters of flim-flam are trying to pull a fast one over local mayors, why?
The probable answer is that denying proper scrutiny of the 2012 TransLink base plan, indicatesAi??thereAi??must be itemsAi??that TransLink doesn’t want local mayors to see. I hope that the Mayor’s Council has the collective backbone to demand TransLink give proper time for mayors to analyze the 2012 plan or better yet, tell TransLink adiA?s!
Metro Vancouver board members debate over Translink’s 2012 plan
Vancouver (AM980)
Jordan Armstrong
http://www.cknw.com/Channels/Reg/NewsLocal/Story.aspx?ID=1457905
Some Metro Vancouver board members are blasting Translink’s CEO for not giving them enough time to review the transit body’s 2012 base plan. Coquitlam councillor Lou Sekora says it’s ridiculous he’s being asked to approve a 60 page plan… that only arrived on his desk this morning.
“You come in here at 9 o’clock, it’s dropped on you. You get a presentation and you got to vote on it. This is totally unrealistic.”
Board chair Lois Jackson asked Translink CEO Ian Jarvis if it would be possible to delay the vote by two weeks. He said no.
That triggered a fiery response from Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan.
“We need more accountability, we need Translink sitting there and answering the questions that all of us have about where of these plans are going in order for Metro Vancouver to approve any kind of base plan or any kind of supplemental plan. I agree entirely with Director Sekora, and I don’t care what their timing is.”
The debate continues this hour…
Updated, Saturday, July 16
It seems that the region’s mayors are fed up with TransLink and the TransLink Board of Amateurs. Stay tuned this story has just begun.
From CKNW radio
NDP tee off on Translink
VANCOUVER – CKNW – AM980
http://www.cknw.com/Channels/Reg/NewsLocal/Story.aspx?ID=1458116
The NDP are wasting no time in getting in line to bash Translink after Metro Vancouver Mayors teed off earlier today.
Harry Bains says says the Translink board is unaccountable and he understands the frustration from Mayors who are left to pick up the pieces..
Bains says the Provincial Government is not respecting mayors and it is time to restructure the Translink board by having it made up of elected municipal officials.
Bains says the NDP will do exactly that if they win the next election and form government in order to make Translink accountable.
He says Mayors are often powerless left to deal with and find funding for whatever Translink drops in their lap.
From CKWX
Board chair likes Evergreen Line referendum idea
http://www.news1130.com/news/local/article/254466–board-chair-likes-evergreen-line-referendum-idea
Lois Jackson supports the idea of a regional referendum
DELTA (NEWS1130) – Metro Vancouver Board Chair Lois Jackson is supporting the idea of a regional referendum on the Evergreen Line.
Jackson, who is also Mayor of Delta, says opinion referendums are often held, so why not for the proposed line to connect Lougheed Mall with the Tri-Cities. “I just don’t think we can have everything. We just can’t afford to have everything. So let’s just take it in pieces here and I think going out to the public – I mean, that is the democratic way.”
She says the problem is a short-time frame to get that done. “We’re wrapped into approvals for certain dates. I continue to have a problem with that. Perhaps it’s an option that people should be looking at.”
She says the suggestion will be bounced off her council and then she will forward it to other Metro Vancouver mayors.
Trinity Western’s Dr. John Redekop says local mayors should jump at the chance, “Because then they won’t be blamed for the consequences and the outcome.”
By that he means the underlying potential of property tax increases if funding gaps for the project can’t be filled.
He adds the region has other important issues to deal with and mayors have other election issues on their agenda. “I would not want to see the November elections really boil down to a referendum on TransLink’s question.”
He says not all taxation issues should go to referendum, but certain controversial issues should including this one that involves a multitude of potential tax increases and transit improvement fees.
Call to dissolve TransLink
There are new calls to see TransLink dissolved and be replaced with an elected board, in light of all the issues surrounding the Evergreen Line.
Lou Sekora is a councillor for the City of Coquitlam and doesn’t like the way things are run. “It’s been running on for years with an unelected board, it’s still not elected. Not responsible to anyone. They just rubber stamp things.”
He says members spend more time fiddling around on their BlackBerries than tackling issues.
Expanding Calgary’s Light Rail
Already emission-free, doubling in size since 2001 and taking delivery of new Siemens SD160NG LRV’s, Canada’s CTrain is a model of sucessful light rail.
http://www.calgarytransit.com/html/technical_information.htm
Light Rail in Calgary is in the midst of a mini revolution. New vehicles, new stations and new routes are all part of a major expansion described by the Canadian city’s then mayor Dave Bronconnier in 2010 as-
`double, double, double’
Ai??Ai??The Light Rail Transit Association LRTA http://www.lrta.org/explain.htmlAi??Ai??Ai??Ai??has published a report in the August 2010 issue of Tramways & Urban Transit TAUT http://www.tramnews.net/default.asp on Calgary’s West LRT expansion:-
http://www.westlrt.ca/Ai??Ai??and http://www.westlrt.ca/contentabout/route_animation.cfm
http://www.calgary.ca/docgallery/bu/engineering_services/emaps/transit_map.pdf
Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??Ai??
Another letter the media ignores
Another letter from a friend of Rail for the Valley,Ai??which the mainstream media wish to ignore.
HereAi??is the problem with our current financial transit debacle, very few, if any in the region understandsAi??what SkyTrain is and why the Vancouver region has it. Most politicos just repeat TransLink’s bumf ad nauseoum!
SkyTrain, both the Expo and Millennium Lines and the Canada Line were forced on the taxpayer by the provincial government. There were NO honest studies done, rather it was simply; “you are going to get SkyTrain whether you like it or not.“, from the premier of the day.
When SkyTrain was first forced on the region, alarm bells went off with transit experts elsewhere, with the majority foretelling of major financial difficulties down the road if we continued to build with the proprietary Skytrain light-metro. Today, like days past, civic and provincial politicians remain blind, deaf and dumb about regional rail transit and many seem to delight in bringing in more onerous taxes upon us.
There is no Robin Hood in this tale, rather the evil Sheriff is shaking the last ‘groat‘ from the tenants and no one seems to care.
Just a reminder, to date the taxpayer has paid over $8 billion for two Skytrain lines and one truncated metro line, plus the metro system is subsidized by over $250 million annually!
It is time to say adiA?s to SkyTrain, only there isn’t a politician with the moral fibre to do so!
The Editor;
“Vancouver is adopting a non-commercial approach…….I hope they have lots of money.”; Norman Thompson, CBE, FCA, ACMA, English transit consultant and builder of the worlds busiest subway, on the BC Government’s choice for SkyTrain instead of LRT in 1980.
Save us from politicians who think of themselves transit experts and think transit problems can be solved by merely increasing taxes. The current fiscal fiasco with TransLink can be traced back to the SkyTrain mini-metro system and TransLink’s love affair with SkyTrain instead of much cheaper, just as effective light rail. The region has spent about six times more for SkyTrain than if LRT had been built instead and what we have got for our SkyTrain investment is a Pandora’s Box of expenses. Modern LRT is much cheaper to build; much cheaper to operate than SkyTrain, with the added bonus that LRT has a higher capacity than Skytrain!
Can’t our politicians read? LRT is superior to Skytrain, that is why no one buys SkyTrain today!
Adding more taxes and user fees will not improve regional transit, in fact it will exacerbate the situation as SkyTrain has an insatiable appetite for money. Building the Skytrain Evergreen Line will only drive up taxes, which will in turn need more tax money and user fees to maintain.
We need to completely rethink how and why we provide transit, as current politically-correct thinking is leading us to a massive tax fiasco. In Europe, successful transit systems put the customer first and design transit routes to accommodate the customer not political and academic dogma.
If we really want to change how transit is operated and financed, we must rid ourselves of TransLink and it archaic mini-metro mentality and then put an end to hugely expensive Skytrain mini-metro. Hard medicine, but the right prescription.
Lies, damn lies, statistics and ART
From the “You’d better believe it” Department
Although sometimes attributed to Mark Twain ai??i?? because it appears in his posthumously-published Autobiography (1924) ai??i?? this should more properly be ascribed to Disraeli, as indeed Twain took trouble to do: his exact words being, ai???The remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: ai???There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statisticsai???.ai??i?? To which we can add a fourth, ART – Advanced Rapid Transit or LMRT – Light Metro Rapid Transit
A week or a month or three is a long time in politics and particularly where public transport is concerned; back then in April the final input from the public was being sought for the phase 2 UBC Rapid transit study.
Amongst all the BC bloggers, the TransLink ai??i?? SkyTrain appreciation society has been lobbying hard for the UBC Line/Millennium Line extensionincluding the controversial $4 billion SkyTrain subway under Broadway, the Evergreen Line to Port Moody and Coquitlam and the Expo line extension from King George Station in Surrey east to Guildford, then along 152 Street to the Fraser Highway to Langley Centre. Worried by the adverse news in the BC press on Translinkai??i??s funding crisis and the hits that the Canada & Evergreen Lines are taking from commentators, journalists, BC Mayors & MLAai??i??s and tax payers, they are retaliating with desperate measures and bizarre plans.
This YouTube video for the Sky Trolley is the latest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljjNCq8aYeQAi?? and also http://www.innovapedia.org/home/innova-business/sky-trolley-elevated-bus-rapid-system/
Ai??
Has all the disadvantages of traditional BRT systemsAi?? low capacity compared to other systems, combined with almost none of the advantages of traditional BRT.
Ai??
A?Ai?? High initial cost
A?Ai?? Massive support column
A?Ai?? Difficult maintenance
A?Ai?? Stations are very small
A?Ai?? Visably intrusive
Doomed to failure, this one is.
The point made about capacity vs light rail is also a bare faced lie – you are quite restricted in the length of train because of the sheer length of the platform lift, and you can’t run two trains closer than you can lower the platform, empty it, fill it, and lift it back up again. Trams can be run virtually nose to tail (e.g. Melbourne).
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
Hamlet, Act 3 Scene 1
Taxpayers entitled to better transit: Light rail advocate – News1130
Taxpayers entitled to better transit: Light rail advocate
Call comes as mayors float idea of two-cent-a-litre gas tax
Renee Bernard Jul 08, 2011 20:34:59 PM
FRASER VALLEY (NEWS1130) – If we pay the taxes, we want the transit. The proposed increase in gas taxes to pay for the Evergreen Line has some saying it's time to get serious about transit to the Fraser Valley.
John Buker speaks for the group Rail for the Valley and predicts people who live south of the Fraser will oppose the tax, unless there are some transit improvements for them.
The organization has been pushing for the use of an already established rail line through to Chilliwack for a light rail system. Buker says the time is right for their idea.
"You could have a 100-kilometre line for a third of the cost of the Evergreen Line. We're not saying that there shouldn't be an Evergreen Line, but that the taxes residents south of the Fraser are paying need to go to projects south of the Fraser," he argues.
Surrey mayor Dianne Watts has thrown her support behind light rail, saying it's a cheaper option than SkyTrain.
via Taxpayers entitled to better transit: Light rail advocate – News1130.
Death, taxes and TransLink
We all want better transit options, but are we willing to pay for them? Well our rather confused regional mayors think so.
The root of TransLink's financial woes has been the SkyTrain proprietary mini-metro system and its clone, the Canada Line. Skytrain costs about four to five times more to build than LRT and about fifteen times more to build than light-rail variant TramTrain, yet for all the added cost for a light-metro line, there are few tangible benefits. If the region had invested in light rail network as originally planned for, the region would have had a LRT network about four times the size of our present SkyTrain line network. Instead of 69 km. of light metro lines, we could have a minimum of 276 km. of LRT! The taxpayer has paid at least four times more for SkyTrain!
Contrary to TransLink's spin, modern LRT is much cheaper to build and operate than SkyTrain (don't be confused by the man-of-straw argument that Skytrain is cheaper to operate because it is driverless, which is untrue) and LRT can be faster than SkyTrain if need be and certainly has a higher capacity as well. TransLink's claims that SkyTrain is faster and has a higher capacity than LRT is based on TransLink's planning which arbitrarily made LRT slower and carry fewer people!
Here we have the main cause for TransLink's financial woes, yet regional mayors want to fund more SkyTrain in the guise of the Evergreen Line.
The ongoing financial chaos will continue as long as we squandering more money on questionable politically prestigious SkyTrain lines.
The cure for our current transit woes is not easy, but if we seriously want to deal with escalating taxes, we must stop building with SkyTrain and we must disband TransLink. Hard medicine yes, but needed to stop the escalating financial burdens on the regional taxpayer.
Higher-taxing mayors should be thrown out
News Release from RftV
Media Release
Rail For the Valley demands the Provincial Government get started on building South of Fraser Light Rail, now that residents are being asked to pay more in vehicle and gas taxes.
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