Oh, what fools we mortals be
In charge of our of our Metro band,
Moonbeam is here at hand,
With a higher PST, mistook by me,
While pleading for a congestion fee.
Shall we their fond referendum see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
Apologies to the bard!
The regional mayors who support a $0.5% increase to fund TransLink have shown their utter ignorance of transit issues by calling the upcoming Transit referendum the “Metro Vancouver congestion improvement tax.“
Ha, ha, ha, because the fools that coined this phrase are utterly incompetent because the only way to reduce congestion is to reduce road space. The name is an oxymoron but the mayors are too clueless to understand this.
What this tax should be called is the “TransLink Executive Bonus Tax“, or the “Mayor Moonbeam Subway Tax“; because a transitAi?? improvement tax, it is not.
I read the article in the Vancouver Sun, it is pretty bad when the people whom proposed the referendum don’t know how they are going to pay for it! The article also said that, the $4 million cost may ultimately have to come from Translink’s budget, if they can’t find it anywhere else. Think about that awhile, especially if the no side won! So, sorry Translink no new money, and we the provincial government are taking the cost of this vote from your budget on top of all this!
Even if the Yes side wins its not binding on the province at all. All this is still predicated that the province pays their slice of each project and the feds kick in cash as well, on a project per project basis, which is the worst thing to do. I told you guys should have pressured the province to do add this during the municipal elections! At the least you would already have the information you need to proceed forward, like how much people are really ready to give up for transit. At this rate its going to be the 20’s before anything meaningful is done with that cash and based on hopes that upper level of governments have any extra cash at all. You need to lock in the funding levels and priorities now (especially funding priorities) before the baby boomer population healthcare cost bulge/bomb does it for you and effectively freezes out any extra funding from upper level governments.
Get rid of TransLink and put competent electrical and mechanical engineers in charge of transit with the mandate to provide cost effective and safe transit. What we require in Metro Vancouver is to get rid of the cockroaches sliming us at TransLink and not a campaign to fund the idiots at TransLink further. Are the mayors paying attention or are they daft?
“Canada line goes up in smoke”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/skytrain-electrical-fire-disrupts-service-in-richmond-1.2880529