A New Look and a New Resolve!

The growing support for the Rail for the Valley TramTrain/Interurban project has made the new look Rail for the Valley website and blog a must as the old blog was rather dowdy. Zweisystem welcomes Cardinal Fang to the blog role, but lest the SkyTrain Lobby think they have chased old Zwei away, think again!

The Rail for the Valley blog has become the centre (some say target) for discussion on modern public transit philsophy and modern transportation. For too long the SkyTrain Lobby has held sway, with a revisionist's fervour, manipulating local transit studies and rewriting transit history to suit their own ends. The RftV blog challenges the SkyTrain Lobby to come clean, by forcing them to deal with transportation fact, not SkyTrain fairytales. Rail for the Valley also challenges TransLink to an open public debate, not propaganda power point presentations, for rail transit South of the Fraser. The silence from the Ivory towers on Kingsway on the RftV/Leewood study speak volumes that TransLink is scared, so scared after a decade of deliberate misinformation, bordering on professional misconduct, that any honest debate will expose their current charade of regional transit planning. Expose the truth and those Ivory towers will crash down.

The new look Rail for the Valley blog, Cardinal Fang and a very large support from people South of the Fraser River are going to make this springs transit debate one to remember!

Welcome to the new Rail For the Valley website

Hi everyone,

I am extraordinarily pleased to present to you the new Rail For the Valley website.

http://www.railforthevalley.com

 

 

AdiA?A?s the Evergreen Line?

USA: Why the Stimulus Package Failed

A commentary by Lyndon Henry, fromAi??Ai??the Light Rail Now folks in the United States. The question to be asked here is: “Was Canada so-called stimulus funding successful?”

While the commentary below doesn’t directly mention public
transportation, rail transit, or passenger rail, I believe it is
directly relevant to the issue of federal investment in these
services and facilities (now under political attack). Beinhart makes
a compelling case for investing in major projects as the most
effective way to create jobs – this certainly bolsters the case for
investing in urban rail, Amtrak, and other public transport projects
as a way not only to start addressing America’s dire
infrastructure-decay and capacity-insufficiency problems but also to
significantly create essential, productive jobs.

The author presents one of the best explanations I’ve seen of the
job-creation “multiplier effect” of such investments.

The Teapot GOP (and Blue Dog Dems) have derided the Obama
administration’s 2009 “stimulus” program as a “failure” that cost
$787 billion (exaggerated to “$800 billion” and even more exaggerated
to “$1 trillion”). Beinhart lays out a compelling case that the
“stimulus” was actually mostly tax cuts and unemployment benefit
subsidies, with only $154.5 billion of actual job-creating stimulus.
Based on that figure, and the well-documented creation of at least
1.6 million jobs, he calculates an average cost per created job of
less than $97,000 – a figure that compares extremely well with other
government “efforts” at “job creation” (such as “trickle-down”
effects of high-inome tax cuts).

I think this analysis and these figures will be helpful to rail
advocates in making the case for much more, not less, public
investment in rail transit and intercity rail projects (definitely an
uphill struggle in today’s loony, Neanderthal political climate).

Lyndon

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-beinhart/why-the-stimulus-package_b_781206.html

Huffington Post
November 9, 2010 05:41 PM

Why the Stimulus Package Failed

Larry Beinhart
Author, ‘Salvation Boulevard,” “Wag the Dog,” “The Librarian.”

The stimulus package failed because it consisted mostly of tax cuts.
Tax cuts are among the very worst ways to create jobs and certainly
the most expensive.

The stimulus package authorizes 787 billion dollars. According to the
official website (Recovery.gov) $565 billion has actually been spent
or credited. There are three categories of “stimulus.” Citing amounts
spent, they are:

1. $243.4 billion in tax cuts.

2. $154.5 billion in contracts, grants, and loans. This is what
we actually think of as a stimulus, construction and research projects.

3. $166.8 billion in entitlements. This is mostly money to the
states to help with unemployment insurance.

Estimates of jobs “saved and created” by the package range from
800,000 to 2.4 million (both from the Congressional Budget Office),
with other estimates at 1.25 million (IHS/Global Insight), 1.06
million (Macroeconomic Advisors), and 1.59 million (Moody’s).

Let’s use Moody’s estimate (sort of the high middle, and independent)
and round it off to 1.6 million jobs “saved and created.”

That’s $353,125 per job.

I’m sorry, but that’s ridiculous. It’s obscene.

If you have an essentially unlimited line of credit, as the
government essentially does, it would appear relatively easy to create jobs.

“Hey, you, over there on the unemployment line, wanna work cleaning
up our national parks? Yeah, we’ll give you a twenty dollar rake,
some biodegradable garbage bags, and twenty bucks an hour.” That
happens to be 47 cents an hour over the average wage.

No national parks or monuments in your neighborhood?

All right, there are lots of empty lots and abandoned homes due to
the housing market collapse. “Let’s clean ’em up. Same deal. That’s
forty thousand a year. You can live on that.”

Presumably the government will be decent about it and pay the usual
benefits — social security, unemployment insurance, workman’s comp,
and so on — which adds $8.11 an hour. That’s a little less than
$17,000 a year, making a total cost of $57,000 per year, per job.

Jobs don’t exist in a vacuum, not even sweeping the streets by hand
with a broom. There has to be a certain number of overhead costs. Not
counting salaries of supervisors and such (which would be part of the
job creation numbers), not counting benefits (already in there), 15
percent is a very generous number, for another $8,550, a total of
$65,550 per job.

So that’s what a “created” job should cost. About $65,000.

If you actually want to “create jobs,” that’s how you should do it.
Go out and create them.

But that’s not how we do things. We were not goddamn Communists. Or
even socialists. We’re capitalists. So we give out contracts to
private enterprises and grants to universities and other institutions.

Construction projects, one of the primary forms of job creation has
lots of costs beside labor. They have machinery, materials, a variety
of business expenses (accounting, insurance, legal, etc.), the
purchase of land and so on. Labor accounts for 20-30 percent of a
construction contract. Let’s take the low end, 20 percent, and assume
that a construction job is one of those $65,000 wages plus benefits
for a full year jobs, and the cost of that job then becomes $325,000.

That’s pretty close to the $353,125 per job number we got using the
Moody’s estimate.
Except that all those other construction costs (excluding land
purchase, which should be less relevant here) involve additional
labor. For example, materials are manufactured, a certain portion of
them here, in the US. Truckers transport them. Building supply
company employees handle them. Machinery is built (some portion of it
here), and maintained (all of it here). The construction company pays
it’s staff and the professionals (lawyer and accountants), and so on.
All those people buy food (keeping supermarket workers employed), buy
other stuff, pay their bills, and so on.

This is the famous Keynesian multiplier effect.

It’s also very difficult to calculate how many non-site, indirect
jobs does a construction project support with all its other spending.
In the figures we’re using, that 80% of the costs. It’s reasonable to
say that at least half of that goes into people’s pockets as it moves
down the line.

If we figure it that way, it should probably cost about $130,000 per job.

Let’s go back to the breakdown.

First let’s take out the aid to the states for unemployment insurance
assistance. Obviously that doesn’t add jobs. It helps people. It goes
to keeping the community afloat, but it doesn’t create a whole lot of jobs.

Let’s take out the tax cuts. Just as an academic exercise, for the moment.

That leaves projects, grants, and loans. $154.5 billion.

If we have 1,600,000 jobs created and saved, and divide it into the
money spent on projects, it comes out at $96,562 per job.

That actually makes sense. It’s expensive. But it makes sense.

Direct job creation, or job creation through contracts (like road
building), has a multiplier effect. Each job creates more jobs, both
through the support jobs and through the spending by the people who
are employed.

Job creation through tax cuts works the opposite way.

The price per job is multiplied many times over.

In this last election cycle, Carl Paladino was running against Andrew
Cuomo for governor of New York. One of the charges that Cuomo leveled
against him was that he got $1.4 million in tax breaks but created
only one job from that.

The implication was that Paladino was a sleazy rip-off artist. At best.

He may be, but it is only a particularly vivid example of how the tax
cuts to job creation equation actually works.

We are still arguing about extending the Bush Tax Cuts.

The Bush Tax Cuts cost about two trillion dollars.

They were originally labeled and promoted as “jobs and stimulus”
packages. Let’s take him at his word. Over the course of his two
terms 1.1 jobs were created. That didn’t even keep up with population
growth. It also cost $1,818,182 per job.

Close to the same numbers that Paladino was working with.

The Obama White House, a prisoner of the prevailing ‘tax cuts
stimulate the economy and create jobs’ theology, passed a stimulus
bill that was 40 percent tax cuts, 30 percent unemployment insurance,
and only 27 percent actual stimulus.

That’s why it didn’t work.

That’s not even the bad news.

Here’s the bad news. The tax cuts are still in effect. The odds are
they will be extended, even for the very wealthiest.

Here’s worse news. There’s only one thing stupider than cutting taxes
to create jobs. It’s to cut spending. In the recent NY governor’s
race, for example, both leading candidates promise to cut spending.
That means cutting jobs. That’s happening state by state all around
the country. Not only does cutting jobs mean, in a very direct
one-to-one way, fewer jobs, it has a negative multiplier effect. It
means there are fewer people with money to spend on the things that
create jobs for other people.

Surrey considers paying its own fare for better transit

Surrey considers paying its own fare for better transit

BY KELLY SINOSKI, VANCOUVER SUN NOVEMBER 5, 2010

Surrey plans to make a stronger case for light rail and streetcar service, and may even consider footing part of the bill if cash-strapped TransLink can’t afford it.

Coun. Judy Villeneuve said city officials were impressed after a visit to Portland, Ore., that it had struck deals with the U.S. federal government and the development industry to help build its transit system, particularly its downtown streetcars.

While Surrey city staff were still reviewing transit options and their cost, Villeneuve said the city might take TransLink up on a suggestion that municipalities consider providing some of their own transit.

“We’re moving in that direction,” Villeneuve said. “We’re not confident we’re going to get the kind of transit (from TransLink) we’re going to need south of the Fraser in the next 10 years.

“We’re going to look at what the options are and what kind of partnerships [are available].”

Meanwhile, Metro Vancouver mayors were to receive a report from Trans-Link today on its proposal for a financial supplement to help pay for the Evergreen Line, a SkyTrain extension in Surrey and other transit projects. TransLink and the mayors are scheduled to meet next Tuesday to discuss the plan.

TransLink is asking Metro mayors for up to $68.2 million next year to help fund transit options, but the mayors are balking at any more property tax increases.

The proposed financial supplement includes options that would see homeowners paying an additional $5.20 to $9 a year per $100,000 assessed value.

The mayors’ council on regional transportation will vote on the proposed supplement in December.

Vincent Lalonde, Surrey’s general manager of engineering, said the city had not made a decision to pay for its own transit projects, but was looking at all options to fast-track transit, including funding, land-use and building relationships with TransLink and the provincial government.

“Surrey is interested in bringing forward rapid transit sooner rather than later, so we’re looking at the things that could be done to fast-track it,” he said.

Lalonde noted councillors were impressed that Portland had initiated its own downtown streetcar service, and that it is funded by all levels of government.

Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts said she would like to see a mix of transportation throughout the city, but added that much depends on the provincial government.

But she said that with another million people moving into Metro in the next 30 years — 70 per cent of them south of the Fraser — Surrey’s transit system has to improve.

“Our goals are to build a community, to move people around, but not necessarily speed them through the city,” she said.

Surrey Coun. Bob Bose said he envisioned a huge network of streetcar and light rail lines connecting Whalley, Newton and Cloverdale, but added, “It’s been a hard sell.”

He said if the city decides it wants to contribute to transit costs, it should take the question to a referendum.

“We’ll have to find ways of recovering it,” he said. “We’ve got to get out of this straitjacket we’re in, in terms of the regional transit system.”

ksinoski@vancouversun.com

Ai??Ai?? Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

via Surrey considers paying its own fare for better transit.

Rail for the Valley News in the EUROPEAN Press!

Ha, ha, ha………

If TransLink, the provincial government and the Vancouver Sun don't think the Rail for the Valley/Leewood TramTrain report isn't worth responding too, Railway Strategies do. Here we have a situation of the RftV/Leewood report being deemed more important overseas than in the Vancouver metro area! This just furthers the evidence that our regional transportation planning has completely off the track or put another way, TransLink is taking the regional taxpayer for a very long ride on the wrong train!

The following link is to the Railway Strategies article.

http://www.railwaystrategies.co.uk/article-page.php?contentid=11367&issueid=346

Let’s NOT make a Deal A?ai??i??ai??? Property tax hike for transit only choice before mayors

TransLink is at it again, playing brinkmanship with regional mayors and I hope the valley politicos see through this tawdry charade, which has become a clichA?Ai?? for TransLink’s haphazard planning efforts.

• Behind door number 1, you have option A
• Ai??Ai??behind door number 2, you have option B;
• behind door number 3, you have option A & B.

But here’s the trick, you got to play TransLink’s game because provincial transportation minister, Shirley Bond insists that regional mayors do play. Some regionalAi??Ai??mayors, including FassbenderAi??Ai??from the City of Langley are acting the part of the country rube, easily outwitted by TransLink’sAi??Ai??hucksters selling financial snake oil.

TransLink is in deep financial trouble, yet it plans more expensive metro lines; BRT, a transit mode with a poor record in attracting ridership; community buses, which mostly run empty; and continuing with the $1.00 a day U-Pass, a heavily subsidized student fare which clogs up buses and fills metro cars, leaving transit customers who pay full fare standing or just taking the car instead! To pay for this nonsense, the regional taxpayer is once again going to be forced to pay for really amateur transit planning, done by a bureaucracy which cares more about their perks and pensions, than planning for an affordable and accessible public transit system.

So here is the Zweisystem solution for transit funding. Let the municipalities with SkyTrain, pay for SkyTrain and the municipalities who have only bus operation, pay only for bus operation. As SkyTrain and light-metro financing so dominate TransLink’s balance sheet, the cities with one or more light-metro lines should pay more for SkyTrain and associated improved bus operations.

Example:

• Municipalities which only operate buses are charged a flat fee of $150 on their property assessments.
• Municipalities withAi??Ai??one light-metro line pay a flat fee of $275 on their property assessments.
• Municipalities with two light metro lines pay a flat fee $400 on their property assessments.
• Municipalities with three light metro lines pay a flat fee of $525 on their property assessments.
• Municipalities that operate trolley buses pay an additional flat fee of $50.00 on their property assessments.

This simple formula, taxes those municipalities and cities who benefit from light-metro and trolley buses and provide an incentive for taxpayers to insist getting the biggest bang for their buck!

It is time to stop playing; “Let’s make a Deal” with TransLink and the provincial government and insist that those who benefit in having light-metro actually pay their fair share for light-metro.

Property tax hike for transit only choice before mayors

By Jeff Nagel

Local mayors will not be asked to vote on imposing a vehicle levy to fund transit expansion A?ai??i??ai??? at least not this year.

Instead, the only option to finance the Evergreen Line and possibly other transit improvements will be an increase to property taxes.

If approved, a typical $600,000 home will pay $31 in increased tax to raise $465 million for TransLink’s share of the $1.4-billion Evergreen SkyTrain line to Coquitlam and the first phase of the North Fraser Perimeter Road.

Mayors council chair Peter Fassbender said it was too late to contemplate the Transportation Improvement Fee, a levy which would have raised the same amount of money by charging $15 to $55 per registered vehicle each year, depending on their carbon footprint.

“It would require legislative change, administrative changes and a number of elements for that to even be considered,” the Langley City mayor said of the vehicle levy.

“And it’s going to get significant pushback from south of the Fraser.”

Metro mayors meet Tuesday (Nov. 9) to be briefed on the proposed financial supplement for TransLink, which still has to be assessed by the independent TransLink commissioner before it goes to a vote on Dec. 9.

But Fassbender is still hopeful a scenario is possible where the mayors are able to negotiate different TransLink funding sources with the province, in line with an accord struck in September.

In essence, he thinks the property tax hike could be voted in now to satisfy the provincial government’s insistence of funding certainty for the Evergreen Line, which breaks ground next year.

But Fassbender notes the extra revenue from TransLink won’t be needed until 2012.

That means a property tax lift pencilled in now could be erased next year if Victoria agrees to provide alternative sources A?ai??i??ai???Ai??Ai??such as road pricing, a share of carbon tax or even the vehicle levy A?ai??i??ai???Ai??Ai??which could flow by 2012.

“Can this get us far enough down the road that it gives us time to find other solutions?” Fassbender asked, referring to temporary approval of a property tax hike.

“If we can take pressure off one way or another so we have some breathing space, let’s do it.”

That scenario would require trust A?ai??i??ai???Ai??Ai??several other mayors fear no such deal with the province may be forthcoming once they sign off.

Transportation minister Shirley Bond has also hinted the government may take unilateral action to ensure TransLink raises the money if mayors vote down the supplement.

Then there’s the resignation of the premier and the ensuing Liberal leadership race that clouds the political landscape and will distract some of the players.

Fassbender said even that could work in favour of a deal.

“We’re in a very interesting time because of the changes,” he said, suggesting the government and leadership contenders will likely want to preside over good news, not discord.

More time to negotiate would provide a better chance to consider the how to implement something like the vehicle levy, he said, noting there’s been talk of options like adjusting the rate depending on the level of local transit service.

Fassbender said TransLink’s plan to introduce smart card payment will also open up intriguing options like rebating vehicle levy or road pricing fees collected back to motorists in the form of transit credits, encouraging them to switch modes some of the time.

“When you pay that fee you get an equivalent amount of transit fares built into that card,” he suggested. “That way we not only raise revenue but also help to shift behaviour.”

Mayors will also have the option to vote on a larger set of transit upgrades, including bus service increases and various SkyTrain station upgrades. That would cost an additional $338 million, lifting the property tax hit to $54 for a typical home.

PROPOSED TRANSLINK INVESTMENTS

OPTION A:

Evergreen Line A?ai??i??ai??? $412 million

(TransLink capital contribution, bus and facilities integration, wayfinding and Broadway-Commercial station)

North Fraser Perimeter Road phase 1 A?ai??i??ai??? $53.2 million

(United Boulevard extension)

OPTION A TOTAL: $465.3 million, requiring $39 million per year

PROPERTY TAX IMPACT: $31 per $600,000 home or $5.20 per $100,000 value.

OPTION B:

Bus service boost to accommodate U-Pass expansion: $85.1 million

Bus service boost to meet minimum service standards: $51.3 million

Highway 1 Bus Rapid Transit: $40.9 million

(Linking Lougheed Station- Surrey Central-Walnut Grove with buses every 10 mins)

Minor Road Network minor capital: $37.9 million

Bus service boost to keep pace with population growth: $36.7 million

Cycling projects: $17 million

Main Street Station upgrade: $16.3 million

Metrotown Station upgrade: $12.9 million

King George Boulevard B-Line Bus service: $12.6 million

New Westminster Station upgrade: $9.2 million

White Rock to Langley bus service: $7.5 million

(community shuttles every 30 mins)

Surrey Central Station upgrade: $5.9 million

Lonsdale Quay upgrade: $4.2 million

TOTAL FOR OPTION B: $337.6 million

TOTAL OF OPTIONS A + B: $802 million, requiring $68 million per year

PROPERTY TAX IMPACT OPTIONS A + B: $54 per $600,000 home or $9 per $100,000 assessed value

Ai??Ai??

http://www.bclocalnews.com/surrey_area/surreyleader/news/106801193.html

Let’s NOT make a Deal A?ai??i??ai??? Property tax hike for transit only choice before mayors

TransLink is at it again, playing brinkmanship with regional mayors and I hope the valley politicos see through this tawdry charade, which has become a clichA?Ai?? for TransLink’s haphazard planning efforts.

• Behind door number 1, you have option A
• Ai??Ai??behind door number 2, you have option B;
• behind door number 3, you have option A & B.

But here’s the trick, you got to play TransLink’s game because provincial transportation minister, Shirley Bond insists that regional mayors do play. Some regionalAi??Ai??mayors, including FassbenderAi??Ai??from the City of Langley are acting the part of the country rube, easily outwitted by TransLink’sAi??Ai??hucksters selling financial snake oil.

TransLink is in deep financial trouble, yet it plans more expensive metro lines; BRT, a transit mode with a poor record in attracting ridership; community buses, which mostly run empty; and continuing with the $1.00 a day U-Pass, a heavily subsidized student fare which clogs up buses and fills metro cars, leaving transit customers who pay full fare standing or just taking the car instead! To pay for this nonsense, the regional taxpayer is once again going to be forced to pay for really amateur transit planning, done by a bureaucracy which cares more about their perks and pensions, than planning for an affordable and accessible public transit system.

So here is the Zweisystem solution for transit funding. Let the municipalities with SkyTrain, pay for SkyTrain and the municipalities who have only bus operation, pay only for bus operation. As SkyTrain and light-metro financing so dominate TransLink’s balance sheet, the cities with one or more light-metro lines should pay more for SkyTrain and associated improved bus operations.

Example:

• Municipalities which only operate buses are charged a flat fee of $150 on their property assessments.
• Municipalities withAi??Ai??one light-metro line pay a flat fee of $275 on their property assessments.
• Municipalities with two light metro lines pay a flat fee $400 on their property assessments.
• Municipalities with three light metro lines pay a flat fee of $525 on their property assessments.
• Municipalities that operate trolley buses pay an additional flat fee of $50.00 on their property assessments.

This simple formula, taxes those municipalities and cities who benefit from light-metro and trolley buses and provide an incentive for taxpayers to insist getting the biggest bang for their buck!

It is time to stop playing; “Let’s make a Deal” with TransLink and the provincial government and insist that those who benefit in having light-metro actually pay their fair share for light-metro.

Property tax hike for transit only choice before mayors

By Jeff Nagel

Local mayors will not be asked to vote on imposing a vehicle levy to fund transit expansion A?ai??i??ai??? at least not this year.

Instead, the only option to finance the Evergreen Line and possibly other transit improvements will be an increase to property taxes.

If approved, a typical $600,000 home will pay $31 in increased tax to raise $465 million for TransLink’s share of the $1.4-billion Evergreen SkyTrain line to Coquitlam and the first phase of the North Fraser Perimeter Road.

Mayors council chair Peter Fassbender said it was too late to contemplate the Transportation Improvement Fee, a levy which would have raised the same amount of money by charging $15 to $55 per registered vehicle each year, depending on their carbon footprint.

“It would require legislative change, administrative changes and a number of elements for that to even be considered,” the Langley City mayor said of the vehicle levy.

“And it’s going to get significant pushback from south of the Fraser.”

Metro mayors meet Tuesday (Nov. 9) to be briefed on the proposed financial supplement for TransLink, which still has to be assessed by the independent TransLink commissioner before it goes to a vote on Dec. 9.

But Fassbender is still hopeful a scenario is possible where the mayors are able to negotiate different TransLink funding sources with the province, in line with an accord struck in September.

In essence, he thinks the property tax hike could be voted in now to satisfy the provincial government’s insistence of funding certainty for the Evergreen Line, which breaks ground next year.

But Fassbender notes the extra revenue from TransLink won’t be needed until 2012.

That means a property tax lift pencilled in now could be erased next year if Victoria agrees to provide alternative sources A?ai??i??ai???Ai??Ai??such as road pricing, a share of carbon tax or even the vehicle levy A?ai??i??ai???Ai??Ai??which could flow by 2012.

“Can this get us far enough down the road that it gives us time to find other solutions?” Fassbender asked, referring to temporary approval of a property tax hike.

“If we can take pressure off one way or another so we have some breathing space, let’s do it.”

That scenario would require trust A?ai??i??ai???Ai??Ai??several other mayors fear no such deal with the province may be forthcoming once they sign off.

Transportation minister Shirley Bond has also hinted the government may take unilateral action to ensure TransLink raises the money if mayors vote down the supplement.

Then there’s the resignation of the premier and the ensuing Liberal leadership race that clouds the political landscape and will distract some of the players.

Fassbender said even that could work in favour of a deal.

“We’re in a very interesting time because of the changes,” he said, suggesting the government and leadership contenders will likely want to preside over good news, not discord.

More time to negotiate would provide a better chance to consider the how to implement something like the vehicle levy, he said, noting there’s been talk of options like adjusting the rate depending on the level of local transit service.

Fassbender said TransLink’s plan to introduce smart card payment will also open up intriguing options like rebating vehicle levy or road pricing fees collected back to motorists in the form of transit credits, encouraging them to switch modes some of the time.

“When you pay that fee you get an equivalent amount of transit fares built into that card,” he suggested. “That way we not only raise revenue but also help to shift behaviour.”

Mayors will also have the option to vote on a larger set of transit upgrades, including bus service increases and various SkyTrain station upgrades. That would cost an additional $338 million, lifting the property tax hit to $54 for a typical home.

PROPOSED TRANSLINK INVESTMENTS

OPTION A:

Evergreen Line A?ai??i??ai??? $412 million

(TransLink capital contribution, bus and facilities integration, wayfinding and Broadway-Commercial station)

North Fraser Perimeter Road phase 1 A?ai??i??ai??? $53.2 million

(United Boulevard extension)

OPTION A TOTAL: $465.3 million, requiring $39 million per year

PROPERTY TAX IMPACT: $31 per $600,000 home or $5.20 per $100,000 value.

OPTION B:

Bus service boost to accommodate U-Pass expansion: $85.1 million

Bus service boost to meet minimum service standards: $51.3 million

Highway 1 Bus Rapid Transit: $40.9 million

(Linking Lougheed Station- Surrey Central-Walnut Grove with buses every 10 mins)

Minor Road Network minor capital: $37.9 million

Bus service boost to keep pace with population growth: $36.7 million

Cycling projects: $17 million

Main Street Station upgrade: $16.3 million

Metrotown Station upgrade: $12.9 million

King George Boulevard B-Line Bus service: $12.6 million

New Westminster Station upgrade: $9.2 million

White Rock to Langley bus service: $7.5 million

(community shuttles every 30 mins)

Surrey Central Station upgrade: $5.9 million

Lonsdale Quay upgrade: $4.2 million

TOTAL FOR OPTION B: $337.6 million

TOTAL OF OPTIONS A + B: $802 million, requiring $68 million per year

PROPERTY TAX IMPACT OPTIONS A + B: $54 per $600,000 home or $9 per $100,000 assessed value

Ai??Ai??

http://www.bclocalnews.com/surrey_area/surreyleader/news/106801193.html

The future of public transit in America A?ai??i??ai??? will Canada Follow?

The following is from Lyndon Henry, from the Light Rail Now folks, who is an avid supporter of public transit and light rail in the United States.

I fear, as many do in Ontario, that our current populistAi??Ai??politicians will lead us to a new public transit dark age, where precious transit monies are spent on glitzy, politically prestigious projects like subways on routes that do not have the ridership to sustain them and highways, creating more gridlock and land use chaos. Transit advocates must stand alert for political inference and “take no prisoners” on politically inspired and expensive transit initiatives that will do little or nothing for the transit customer.

I find it a very sour irony that, after 8 years of a far-right
administration hostile to rail transit and intent on dismembering
Amtrak, the replacement of the “nightmare” regime by the “Hope and
Change” regime has led to prospects for rail transit, Amtrak –
indeed, all public transport – that may be even more dire than ever.

Even more disastrous than the outlook for a Congress more
dysfunctional (and malicious) than before is the clear trend toward a
blanket renunciation of virtually all socially beneficial public
investment, and the new Fear campaign now emerging focused on the
potential takeover of the USA by China as a consequence of deficit
spending (have you seen the latest TV ads promulgating this?).

As far as I can tell, the prevailing mindset in the top echelons of
America’s ruling circles has embraced a renunciation of significant
public investment in favor of a policy focus on near-term profit
engorgement, a Gilded Age business vision, and basically a fairly
brutal, barren YOYO (You’re On Your Own) world. I believe this
explains the billions now being funnelled into ongoing political
campaigns to further the new objectives of this mindset.

I would not expect public transport to fare well in this emerging
political climate. Public transport advocates should be ready for
some very rough times.

Lyndon

The future of public transit in America A?ai??i??ai??? will Canada Follow?

The following is from Lyndon Henry, from the Light Rail Now folks, who is an avid supporter of public transit and light rail in the United States.

I fear, as many do in Ontario, that our current populistAi??Ai??politicians will lead us to a new public transit dark age, where precious transit monies are spent on glitzy, politically prestigious projects like subways on routes that do not have the ridership to sustain them and highways, creating more gridlock and land use chaos. Transit advocates must stand alert for political inference and “take no prisoners” on politically inspired and expensive transit initiatives that will do little or nothing for the transit customer.

I find it a very sour irony that, after 8 years of a far-right
administration hostile to rail transit and intent on dismembering
Amtrak, the replacement of the “nightmare” regime by the “Hope and
Change” regime has led to prospects for rail transit, Amtrak –
indeed, all public transport – that may be even more dire than ever.

Even more disastrous than the outlook for a Congress more
dysfunctional (and malicious) than before is the clear trend toward a
blanket renunciation of virtually all socially beneficial public
investment, and the new Fear campaign now emerging focused on the
potential takeover of the USA by China as a consequence of deficit
spending (have you seen the latest TV ads promulgating this?).

As far as I can tell, the prevailing mindset in the top echelons of
America’s ruling circles has embraced a renunciation of significant
public investment in favor of a policy focus on near-term profit
engorgement, a Gilded Age business vision, and basically a fairly
brutal, barren YOYO (You’re On Your Own) world. I believe this
explains the billions now being funnelled into ongoing political
campaigns to further the new objectives of this mindset.

I would not expect public transport to fare well in this emerging
political climate. Public transport advocates should be ready for
some very rough times.

Lyndon