Sobering News about The Regional Transit system

The following article in City Hall Watch has some sobering news, ridership has not rebounded to pre covid levels!

Main article here, please click

It is a rather long article, but worth a read because it illustrates TransLink’s big problem of declining ridership.

Claims of increased ridership are more than questionable, but it seems higher ridership numbers come mainly from the suburbs and due to population growth and not a user-friendly transit system.

This is a big problem, especially when one is spending $16 billion to extend the rapid transit system a mere 21.7 km!

Part of the problem is demographics, the transit friendly population is slowly aging out and the next generations view public transport differently. As well, downtown Vancouver is no longer the the big destination hub as high rents and leases are driving business outside the downtown core. Added to this, major universities and colleges have campuses in the downtown, with the big problem that the $1 a day U-Pass post secondary student pass, with around 130,000 issued and is being used far more than it was designed to, translates to the fact the income needed, to support the hugely expensive light metro system is not being generated.

The other huge problem facing TransLink is that the City of Surrey population will soon surpass Vancouver’s and the politcal strength of the city, will compel transit dollars being spent there, instead of the City of Vancouver. This could jeopardize the now $8 billion needed to complete the Broadway subway to UBC and any sort of real rapid transit, other than ‘rapidbus’ for the North Shore.

The following is from our friend Mr. Cow who gives a sobering explanation of the finical ills soon to beset TransLink and regional taxpayers.

Fast direct trains are darn great but they are really expensive. Vancouver (Translink) has a $600 million annual budget gap, due to a very outdated funding formula. Now, starting in 2026 both the federal government and provincial government are subsidizing Translink to partially close the gap. Including a annual 2% fare increase and other economic measures Translink is still out $266-$287 Million per year. These are from Translink’s own numbers.

What you need is very expensive new funding formula for Translink and they are still waiting for politicians to make a decision. According to my spies, the politicians are never going to give Translink the budget boost it wants, there are going to be service cuts, pardon me, service adjustments. Times are just too tough for people especially at the municipal level.

The serious issue is that, the extra provincial funding ends in 4 years and the federal in 10 years. That means in 2030 a new $94 million dollar operating budget gaps appears. Again in 2036 another $140 million. All these costs will have to be absorbed by Translink. Keeping in mind the current funding formula really only funded about 80% of what Translink really wanted to do, according to Translink officials I talked to back in 2015. The problem with great big regional transit agencies in North America, they never receive enough operating funds. One of the major points in my thesis for my planning degree back in the early 1990’s.

The days of $6-$10 Billion rapid transit lines are over. The money just isn’t there anymore provinces and federal governments want 33% -40% of the budget for new lines paid by the local government, unless national or provincial money is at risk due to congestion or some other important issue. Just like we were forced to in Ottawa for phase 2 and 3 of our Light Rail Transit network.In phase 2 we were able to build 44 km of rail service for $4.6 Billion but locally we paid almost 39% of the costs, it had to be as cheap as possible.

It is especially troubling for provincial and federal funding officials when they notice that, the local governments here in the lower mainland can barely afford its transit operating budget. Until that is dealt with, don’t even think of new lines unless your province wants to keep paying 100% of the capital cost all by itself. The funding pendulum is swinging back to what it was in the 80’s and 90’s get use to it.