Death, taxes and TransLink
Posted by zweisystem on Friday, July 8, 2011 · Leave a Comment
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
The Province July 8, 2011
Metro Vancouver voters should remember July 6, and what most of the region's mayors inflicted on them on that date, when they are deciding how to vote in the November municipal elections.
With the sting of the latest July 1 hike of the useless carbon tax still fresh in everyone's minds, and in the midst of the vote on the widely loathed HST, the mayors foolishly decided it was a good time to slam the region's overtaxed citizens with a bunch of new levies to pay for more transit projects the region clearly can't afford.
On top of the 45 cents per litre that Lower Mainlanders already pay in taxes -which the B.C. Automobile Association says is likely the highest in North America -the mayors want to add another two cents, plus new property taxes and are considering new vehicle licence fees, a regional carbon tax and other forms of gouging in the future.
TransLink is clearly out of control. The organization needs to live within its means because taxpayers -in particular motorists -are already paying their fair share. If TransLink can't afford the Evergreen Line within its existing budget, then the project should be cancelled until it can. People can't afford more taxes.
Alternatively, TransLink should increase fares -and make sure all fares are collected -on those who actually use the system. Drivers are doing enough. Politicians who don't get this should be voted out in November. Enough is enough.
It comes as no surprise to see that the Greater Vancouver mayors have voted in favour of hiking gasoline taxes to pay for the Evergreen Line. Instead of showing some courage and leadership by way of cutting non-essential services and programs in their own communities to free up the money for essentials such as transit, they've once again taken the easy way out by attempting to force motorists to bail them out.
Gary Tupper, New Westminster
