Telling The Truth About Transit In Metro Vancouver, Is A Revolutionary Act
The problem with the current transit system is simple, those in charge are doing the same thing over again, expecting different results.
Not working!
What is needed is a complete rethought how transit service is provided, based on customer needs and not TransLink’s or Victoria’s political needs.
TransLink’s ridership has been in decline for almost a decade with a huge 3.2% drop in ridership in 2025 from 2024. This should send alarm bells off in TransLink’s ivory towers, but it hasn’t.
The province should be concerned, but they are not, just more ‘gish-gallop’ from the Minister in charge with the current $16 billion+, 21.7 km expansion of the Expo and Millennium Lines.
The problem with transit in Metro Vancouver is rather simple, the bus system is so designed to feed the SkyTrain light metro system – pure 1970’s transit philosophy. Buses feed the rapid transit and the rapid transit takes the customer to the city centre, with everyone relishing the high ridership numbers on the R/T Line, while ignoring bus ridership.
The problem today is; it is 2026 and demographic and travel habits have changed, downtown Vancouver is no longer the main destination and then there is the electric car!
Commuters are now on a East-West axis as high rents in the downtown core are chasing many businesses East into the cheaper Fraser Valley, which is poorly served by transit.
The SkyTrain light-metro system is pure 1970’s transit philosophy designed for short trips in city centres and not as a regional railway and is both uncomfortable and inconvenient for today’s transit customers, yet TransLink is spending $16 billion+ (full program costs) to extend the light metro system 5.7 km in a subway on a route with nowhere the ridership to justify a subway and 16 km , extending it to Langley, again on a route that has noway near the ridership to justify the expenditure.
That $16 billion cost is now coming from healthcare, social services, education and from TransLink itself to pay for what is really and election showcase project.
As commuting habits and demographic change, the massive concrete structures for light-metro do not, yet light-metro is a politcal statement by the provincial and municipal governments. Today, this statement more and more means “we have done it all wrong“, yet change is felt to be politcal suicide.
So Transit ridership will decline and the “Ship of fools” that run the damn thing (Premier’s office, MoT, Metro Vancouver and the Mayor’s Council on Transit and an entrenched ossified bureaucracy will not or cannot change.
Fundamental change is desperately needed but will never happen, because the system is so designed not to!
Financial reality will soon hit TransLink and the fear and loathing from Victoria, and the Ivory towers of Metro Vancouver and TransLink, remain blind to the fact there is only one taxpayer.
Telling the truth about public transit in Metro Vancouver is a revolutionary act!
