The Vancouver Sun Again Embarrasses Itself With a Pro SkyTrain – Pro TransLink Editorial!
Posted by zweisystem on Wednesday, December 8, 2010 · Leave a Comment
In one of the most self serving pro-TransLink, pro-SkyTrain editorials yet, the Vancouver Sun printed a "puff' editorial authored by former Premier Mike Harcourt, who championed the Canada Line, and Dale Parker, Chair of TransLink, whose planning bureaucrats still squander millions of dollars on unachievable metro plans. The aim of the editorial, of course is to try to embarrass the regional mayors to get onside with more tax monies so TransLink can squander millions more on 'pie in the sky' transit planning.
According to Harcourt (please remember this is the chap who built a house on a cliff and with a complete lack of foresight built a sundeck on the cliff without a railing and promptly slipped off and almost killed himself) the Canada Line is a great success and we live in the "…….world’s most livable region……..". Me thinks Mr. Harcourt still suffers from his most avoidable accident.
The Canada Line, a $2.5 billion plus truncated metro line carries less than 40,000 actual riders (some estimates could be as low as 30,000) a day, with many riders traveling free, such as the YVR workers who park at the massive employee parking lots on the periphery of the airport and travel free on the Canada Line (all travel on the Canada Line is free on Sea Island) to complete their journey to work! U-Pass enabled students are using the Canada line multiple times a day, which like a ponzi scheme, drives up the number of boardings, while at the same time not adding new actual ridership.
In South Delta, TransLink is cutting back on rush hour buses because transit customers did not flock to the new metro and former transit customers, who used to have a direct service to Vancouver but now are forced to transfer to the Canada Line, are slowly returning to the car.
If this is the great success as espoused by Harcourt, then please, we can't afford any more TransLink success.
The financial problem facing TransLink is simple: Three decades of planning for the extremely expensive SkyTrain light-metro has blinkered transit planners at TransLink to plan for only SkyTrain. Much cheaper light rail has been rejected outright with a litany of invented excuses, which boarder on being out right lies. TransLink's inbred and self serving SkyTrain light-metro doctrine rejects light rail and treats it as a poorman's SkyTrain, despite the fact the modern LRT is the predominant urban 'rail' transit mode in the world, while at the same, the same planning mandarins quietly plan for massive new highway expansion because SkyTrain is just too expensive to extend into regions where new transit is so desperately needed.
No thanks Mr. Harcourt and Mr. Parker, your sordid spin is not believed. TransLink has utterly failed in providing an affordable and efficient transit system for the region. Planning for affordable transit options such as the Rail for the Valley/Leewood Report TramTrain for the Fraser Valley is rejected outright. TransLink is built on a foundation of moral and financial quicksand. Regional mayors are quite right in rejecting increasing property taxes to pay for more expensive TransLink bureaucrats needed to plan for more costly and largely unaffordable metro projects in Vancouver, which in turn will require even more tax increases in the future to fund.
Gerald Fox, an American transit expert concisely sums up TransLink's financial woes; "……Vancouver will need to adopt lower-cost LRT in its lesser corridors, or else limit the extent of its rail system. And that seems to make some TransLink people very nervous."
TransLink's planning just goes around in expensive circles, achieving very little.
Opportunity for Metro Vancouver transit foundation is now
By Mike Harcourt and Dale Parker, Special to the Vancouver Sun
December 7, 2010
Between the two of us, we’ve seen Metro Vancouver’s transportation challenges from all sides. And while there are some major issues to work through to move our road, transit, cycling and pedestrian network to the capacity and efficiency we must have to sustain a growing region, our view is that we’ve never been closer to realizing the dream of so many Metro Vancouver citizens: a comprehensive and complete transit and road system.
We have the momentum. TransLink has contributed or attracted a total of close to $6.5 billion in capital improvements for transit, roads and bridges in its 11-year existence. Provincial and federal investments continue to complement our regional initiatives. Better roads are supporting the goods movement to and from our ports that is so critical for our economy. Better transit facilities and fleet expansion in all modes are improving sustainable mobility for more people. Transit ridership will be close to 320 million boardings this year, up from 224 million boardings in 1999.
With the Canada Line being such a success, the Evergreen Line soon to be constructed, starting next year, solid concepts in place by next spring on transit extensions into Surrey and out to UBC, our rapid transit network could be in place within 5 years. Add 600-800 buses, particularly seven Bus Rapid Transit lines and Frequent Transit Network bus routes throughout the High Growth Communities in Surrey, Langley and the North East Sector. Expand walking and biking opportunities. Replace the Pattullo and some of the other aging bridges.
Then we'll have a transportation system with mobility, instead of gridlock and overcrowding.
The issue then is how to pay for this complete and comprehensive transportation system. The fact is, congestion now costs our citizens and businesses $1.5 billion per year, so we’re already paying except we’re not ‘getting anywhere,’ neither on our daily trips nor toward a solution. What a waste!
New thinking is needed to switch some of that congestion cost over to a $380 million per year increased investment in mobility as outlined above, and the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that the Mayors Council and the province signed in late September provides the foundation and the direction. With it in place, our elected leaders have a golden opportunity to look at a range of policies and regulations that put sensible taxation measures in place and clears the way for TransLink to maximize operational efficiencies and increase internally-generated, non-tax revenues.
What these measures might be are for governments and publics to discuss, with TransLink providing the technical information needed to inform good decisions. At the heart of good decisions, though, we believe that in addition to raising the money needed to give our citizens the improvements they support, the funding measures we create should also give them an opportunity to manage their own travel costs by exercising discretion in the time, length and mode of their trips. That’s not something property taxes can do, which is why we take the mayors’ point about the need for alternatives.
Achieving the world’s most livable region is no small task. It involves the responsibilities and interests of various levels of governments in areas such as air quality and GHG’s, social responsibilities, managing growth and more. As many jurisdictions have discovered, creating a governance structure for their transportation agency that reflects those interests is also no small task.
Regardless of the governance structure, success is heavily dependent on agreeing to a set of clear roles and responsibilities, a commitment to trust and a willingness to work cooperatively. Endless tinkering or wholesale structural changes will not get us anywhere if the entities that the public expects to act like partners on their behalf are fundamentally unable to work together. That’s what makes it so important and symbolic to clear away the obstacles and get on with the Evergreen Line.
Good financial management, efficiencies, lower fuel prices and better interest rates have put TransLink in a strong enough financial position that it can fulfill the region’s commitment to the Evergreen Line without new funding until 2012. That, plus the government’s move to set aside the funding agreement deadline until March 31st, plus the substance and spirit of the MOU, gives all of us time to explore good options while getting the new line into construction without further delay.
We have come a long way, we’re closer than ever to the transportation network we need, and we now have the best opportunity yet to establish an even stronger foundation to support our region’s future. We urge the mayors and the province to act with a sense of urgency to take best advantage of it.
http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/editorials/Opportunity+Metro+Vancouver+transit+foundation/3940875/story.html
