An Independent Audit Of TransLink Needed – NOW!
What TransLink wants, TransLink gets as fiscal responsibility is not in TransLink’s lexicon. Public scrutiny of TransLink is non existent. The Mayor’s Council On Transit invests in Transit to secure future elections and reelections and the public is left with a largely 1950’s bus system, tarted up with a now obsolete 1970’s light-metro system.
Positive photo-ops and well practiced 10 second sound bytes for the evening news is more important than providing a user and a taxpayer friendly transit service.
What is telling, mode share for transit in the Metro Vancouver region has stagnated for a quarter of a century, as new ridership comes strictly from population increase.
TransLink is building a now almost $4 billion, 5.7 km subway under Broadway to cater to traffic flows of just over 2,000 pphpd from customers using the Broadway B-99 bus!
TransLink turned a $1.63 billion light rail project in Surrey to a $7 billion, 16 km SkyTrain project on a route that will carry fewer customers than the Broadway B-99 bus!
TransLink is spending $16 billion to extend the Expo and Millennium Lines a mere 21.7km!
There is something radically wrong with Metro Vancouver’s transit system, yet the NDP’s only solution is to raise taxes and fares and throw more money after bad at the system, ever hoping that the transit system will improve.
Taxpayers demand an independent audit of TransLink governance, planning and operation and independent means done by someone outside the BC and SNC Lavalin’s sphere of influence.
Is the Metro Vancouver taxpayer getting good value from money spent on transit?
The transit customer and the taxpayer deserve much better from Premier Eby’s NDP government!
Metro Vancouver’s TransLink plans fare and tax hikes for better service
By The Canadian Press
Posted April 10, 2025
TransLink is proposing a plan to improve its services, ease overcrowding, and finish projects, but it will involve a fare hike and a tax increase for Metro Vancouver residents.
The B.C. government announced Thursday that it would provide $312 million in operating funding to the Metro Vancouver transit operator over the next three years if the rest of its investment plan is approved.
The plan would allow for several improvements, including more service on up to 50 bus routes, extending the North Shore’s rapid bus, and adding West Coast Express train cars.
But it would also mean a five per cent fare increase in July 2026, followed by annual two per cent increases, and there would be another $1.50 added to the current fee to go the airport, along with a 0.5 cent property tax increase, equal to about $20 for a median household.
Denis Agar, executive director of Movement: Metro Vancouver Transit Riders, says Thursday’s funding announcement is a huge sigh of relief for commuters.
“We generated over 3,000 emails to mayors and 3,000 emails to MLAs,” Agar said.
“So we think they heard loud and clear that riders want to prevent cuts and they actually want more service. And it looks like that’s what we got.”
He says he hopes TransLink will use this momentum to come up with a permanent solution to their financial issues.
“This is a three-year plan, that’s when the funding expires, and it doesn’t address some really serious problems that are still left in the system,” he said.
“So we’re challenging the mayors in the province to come up with a new plan in just one year.”
Agar notes the plan doesn’t fund the long-awaited SkyTrain extension to UBC or the gondola up to SFU.
A public consultation process is being held on the plan with comments accepted until April 24. A vote by both the Mayors’ Council and the TransLink Board is expected on April 30.
TransLink provides 5.5 million service hours every year, operating commuter trains and the SeaBus, as well as trolley and regular buses, but has said it faced a shortfall of $600 million per year.
Transportation Minister Mike Farnworth says they know that TransLink is facing a significant deficit as costs and demand for services increase, and the provincial funding will allow for both stable service and for expansion.
The B.C. money is in addition to $1.5 billion over 10 years that the federal government announced for the network in March.
— With files from Srushti Gangdev
No investigation is needed Zwei, their raising barely half of what they want to and will be cutting the rest, all while they say they are increasing service. So 1984!
The Fed’s and the Province are kicking in $150 Million & $104 Million per year plus $35 Million to $50 Million next year and a annual increase of $10 – $15 Million in fare revenue increases. An increase in property taxes that will collect $24 Million – $30 Million per year, at most. That’s a price support of $313 Million to $334 Million per year for the next 3 years. You are presently short $600 Million per year.
There are still going to be some serious cuts somewhere. I hope your guys come up with one hell of a good operating and permanent funding plan. That reminds me of Orwell’s 1984, when they tell people that the chocolate ration will be increased when its actually a decrease. Wow interesting times, you better hope nothing else happens.
The post was the culmination of a series of conversations i have had with other transit advocates and some wild news stories about transit expansion. The bottom line is that TransLink is in deep financial peril and the ruling NDP are up to their eyeballs promoting SkyTrain. The completion of the Broadway subway to UBC is etched in stone, yet there is no real demand for such a hugely expensive subway solution.
Listen to our politcans and they think that subways solve all transit issues and from the sparse replies I have had from local politicos, they have been sold on the fact that subways are the ultimate cure-all transit solution so its best to “buck up” and build the best because it will solve all our problems.
Based on what I think will happen in our new financial, “Trumpian” reality is that the Expo line will probably be extended to 164th in Surrey, no OMC#5 and about 2 km of uncompleted line in Surrey and 3 km of uncompleted line in Langley.
TRANSLINK’S OPERATING BUDGET ISSUES
YEAR ACTUAL FUNDING FINANCIAL NEED OUTSTANDING AMOUNT
Year 1 (2026) $313-$334 Million $600 Million $266-$287 Million
Year 2 $323-$344 Million $600 Million $256-$277 Million
Year 3 $333-$354 Million $600 Million $246-$267 Million
Year 4 $239-$260 Million $600 Million $340-$361 Million
No more provincial funding
Year 5 $249-$270 Million $600 Million $330-$351 Million
Year 6 $259-$280 Million $600 Million $320-$341 Million
Year 7 $269-$290 Million $600 Million $310-$331 Million
Year 8 $279-$300 Million $600 Million $300-$321 Million
Year 9 $289-$310 Million $600 Million $290-$311 Million
Year 10 $299-$320 Million $600 Million $280-$301 Million
No more Federal funding
Year 11 $159-$180 Million $600 Million $420-$441 Million
This doesn’t account for inflation and assumes a 2% fare increase every year.
TRANSLINK has a very serious Operating Budget Problem over the next decade.
No more talk of expansion of anything until this is solved!
Again thank you for this information. As I have estimated there is a $3 to $4 billion shortfall in funding.
in 2023 10 year financial outlook translink projected $4.7 billion funding deficit by 2033
$958 gas tax revenue
$1.88 billion fare revenue
SLS and BSP $408 million
add bus hours $411 million
These new contracts with Unifor and CUPE expire in 2026 and 2028, add cost?(1.06)
2 projections.
A. Gas tax reliable revenue.
B. Ridership recovery would be slow.
revenue sources.
Gas tax
Property tax.
Parking tax.
Hydro Levy
Replacement tax.
Investment income.
Development cost charge.
Fares
BC Government bus and U-Pass program.
Real estate and miscellaneous(like:AD, retail and merchandise).
New possible revenue sources.
Mobility pricing.
Congestion pricing.
Annual fare electric vehicle.
Annual fare passenger vehicles.
2025
Gas tax budget around $300 million.
The property tax is going up.
Parking taxes going up.
Hydro Levy is stable.
Replacement tax is stable.
Investment income is up.
DCC up
Fare revenue is going up.
Bc Government bus and U-Pass program stable.
Real estate and miscellaneous is coming up slightly.
The extension of stable funding $312 million add up to 3,000 bus hours of operation. Annual service hours 7.2 billion to 7.5 billion hours. Relieve overcrowding on bus.
Investment income and development cost charges is cash solution capital expenditures. Relying on boring or government loans of public transit projects. Projected budget 2025 cash infrastructure investment around $400 million. Up $5 billion dollars local infrastructure funding for access for everyone plan.
So far Permanent transit fund $2.1 Billion annually over 10 years $210 million. Metro agreement funding source up or down depending other participants on their 10 year investment plan. Major projects coming up UBC Extension, gondola to SFU and BRT program electrical targeted rapid transit project stream.
So far, translink has secured $7.1 Billion out of 21 billion dollars for the next 10 year of transit expansion starts 2026.
If new funding cannot be secured stock at 2019 service levels 7.1 Billion hours.
Metro Vancouver has reached the milestone of 3 million people and growing.
All day ridership recovery %109
Am/PM peak ridership recovery %94
2024 404 million boardings.
Zwei Replies: you miss the whole point, can TransLink’s numbers be trusted. The many politcans I have communicated with; former TransLink employee’s I have communicated with; and professionals I have communicated with have said NO! it is in TransLink’s interest that they fudge numbers and with the Mayor’s Council, the province and metro Vancouver so deep in Translink’s financial mire, the taxpayer will bear the brunt of fiscal “porkies”.
WE NEED A FULLY INDEPENDENT AUDIT OF TRANSLINK INCLUDING INDEPENDENT RIDERSHIP COUNTS!
It’s not just the Skytrain, but what the Skytrain is being used to promote: Towers-and-Skytrain.
With the Langley extension, the line is travelling down the Fraser Highway, where there is no population base, basically, and it is doing so at a cost 7-times greater than LRT|streetcar in Kitchener-Waterloo. The Broadway tunnel, before cost-overruns being discussed here, is 11-times more expensive than LRT|streetcar.
The technology that was demonstrated here in Vancouver at the 2010 Olympics is now operating in Edmonton (Valley Line) and will be opening in Toronto (Crosstown Eglington).
I’ve been to Edmonton and Kitchener to ride these systems. Their level of integration with the urban environment is hugely superior to the Skytrain.
Case in point, the Skytrain stations are so expensive that they are built further apart, often in remote locations. Thus, as is the case on the Jericho Lines (cause for the Skytrain extension to UBC) a bus loop is required alongside. This turns the station into an island of asphalt in a sea of buses.
LRT|streetcar stops on the curb. It’s a lipstick transit station with a shelter and a pay machine. In Edmonton the Valley Line rides between tree medians in single family neighborhoods. Why not? The cost is so low.
Then there is the Housing Crisis. Skytrain has inscribed the urban population it an undersized core Loop. The diameter of the loop is just 8.5 miles from Commercial Station to Columbia in New Westminster. That forces neighbors to bid up prices for housing higher and higher.
And what they are bidding for are micro apartments. The basic two-bedroom has shrunk in size by 20& from 800 SF to 650.
When households pay 2-times more for housing, the amount left over to spend in the local economy is cut in half. That explains all the closed and empty storefronts. Too bad, because mom-and-pop jobs are the backbone of employment in the Canadian economy.
This is not just a transit problem, it is a housing crisis and an economy heading for a crash!