Bad run for TransLink as disasters pile up
More unhappy news for TransLink……….
Bad run for TransLink as disasters pile up
By Michael Smyth, The ProvinceApril 13, 2012
http://www.theprovince.com/story_print.html?id=6452292&sponsor=
I doubt the folks at TransLink are worried about the ominous date on the calendar today.
Metro Vancouver’s transit authority has had such a lousy run of late that Friday the 13th could hardly bring any worse news.
TransLink’s losing streak started shortly after April Fool’s Day, when Metro drivers were hit with a new two-cents-a-litre gas tax to pay for SkyTrain’s new Evergreen Line extension.
As drivers grumbled, news broke that eight senior TransLink executives and CEO Ian Jarvis were in line for hefty performance bonuses.
For people responsible for making the trains run on schedule, you’d think they’d have a better sense of timing.
“Inappropriate,” said Transportation Minister Blair Lekstrom, while Premier Christy Clark opined: “They shouldn’t be getting bonuses.”
The fact that the “outraged” politicians claimed to be powerless to stop the executive booty haul just made the public angrier.
Then, after a too-short Easter reprieve, TransLink’s week-from-hell really kicked into high gear.
Lekstrom got things rolling by rejecting TransLink’s request for a vehicle levy to make up a $30-million budget shortfall. He said no to a new carbon tax and toll booths, too.
Then transit commissioner Martin Crilly piled on by rejecting TransLink’s request for a 12.5-per-cent fare hike.
Crilly’s hit was particularly harsh because he threw in a brutal report slamming TransLink for waste and inefficiency. He called on the transit authority to find millions in internal savings.
By the time Thursday rolled around, the embattled TransLink CEO had still not officially responded to Crilly’s report. “He’s still reading it,” came the official word.
Maybe he’s a slow reader. Or maybe he was just hiding out, while the hits just kept on coming.
Up next: An internal security memo, obtained by CKNW reporter Janet Brown, that said SkyTrain police had an eight-a-day quota for writing fare-evasion tickets to transit freeloaders.
Now, I wouldn’t mind a ticket quota so much ai??i?? if TransLink actually collected the fines! It was revealed earlier there was no system to enforce “penalties” imposed by transit cops.
The cherry on top: A SkyTrain “switching problem” that snarled service for morning commuters, who could only do a slow burn because there was not a TransLink official in sight to explain what was happening.
Free advice to Christy Clark: It’s time to blow up TransLink and start over from scratch.
………and when the mainstream media starts reporting the silliness that has become TransLink, the bad news will keep coming in droves.
While I like the idea of Vancouver having steretcars, one of the best features of our current system is its integration. One ticket and you can ride (almost) anything Skytrain, bus, Seabus. IF there are going to be steretcars I do not want to have a pay a separate fare like I have to on the False Creek ferries.Sadly $28 million does not buy very much in the way of a streetcar system. And the tiny bit we do have, the CoV cannot afford to run. There is no money this year for the Downtown Heritage Railway to run between Granville Island and Olympic Village. Let alone put down track on the righ of way past the Village on False Creek or Science World.