TransLink Just Doesn’t Get It – Increasing Fares Via The Park & Rides

In one of TransLink’s moreAi??daft ideas, a strict cash grab by bureaucrats, TransLink is going to charge at the park & rides that service the transit system.Ai??For many, this amounts to a 20% fare hike for 3-zone transit customers, which in the end will just provideAi??an incentive for transit customers to go back commuting by car.

This price gouge shows is how desperate the mandarins running TransLink are in trying toAi??squeeze more dollars from transit customers who already pay top dollar for inferior transit service.

Park and rides are generally built to service areas which have poor or nonexistent transit services to entice car drivers to transit and making them a cash cow will just deter transit customers in the long run.

Oh by the way, has TransLink cancelled the generous car allowances and other perks for the well paid staff?

No? Thought so.

Sadly, TransLink just can’t seem to trim its own staff, nor plan for an adequate public transit and both regional and provincial politicians must decide, whether it is time to pull the plug on TransLink and start anew.

Bus users balk at park-and-ride fees

By Dan Ferguson – Peace Arch News Ai??Published: September 19, 2012

The planned end to free parking at the South Surrey TransLink park-and-ride lot and a proposed shift to a $2-a-day minimum fee has local commuters unhappy, but resigned.

ai???Thatai??i??s ridiculous,ai??? said White Rock resident Virginia Tomkow, a flight attendant who relies on the King George lot to get to work at Vancouver International Airport.

ai???We pay enough for that (already),ai??? Tomkow told Peace Arch News Tuesday.

The only positive, she said, was the parking fee might reduce congestion at the often-overcrowded lot.

Tomkow said she will pay the fee, because she has no practical alternative.

ai???Itai??i??s essential,ai??i?? she said. ai???I work (late) shifts and I canai??i??t get a bus in the evening in White Rock.ai???

Crescent Beach resident Bob Semaniuk, who was waiting in his car for a parking spot to come open, said TransLink is ai???nickel and dimingai??? riders who are trying to save money.

ai???I donai??i??t think that would be fair,ai??? Semaniuk said of the parking fee.

ai???People are already strapped.ai???

Commuter Kim Ross was dismayed to hear a parking charge was being contemplated.

ai???That sucks,ai??? Ross said.

The former White Rock resident, who returned by bus Tuesday to visit relatives, predicted the additional expense will deter people from using the transit system.

ai???It just adds up,ai??? Ross said. ai???Thatai??i??s (another) $10 a week, $40 a month.ai???

Another regular rider, Kelly Craik, agreed.

ai???It adds up,ai??? Craik said. ai???Thatai??i??s not right.ai???

Among the half-a-dozen commuters whom agreed to be interviewed by Peace Arch News, only one person, a visitor from Vancouver Island who didnai??i??t give her name, supported the notion.

ai???Itai??i??s user pay,ai??? she said. ai???Someone has to pay for it (transit).ai???

The planned minimum parking fee of $2 a day was revealed in TransLinkai??i??s new draft 2013 plan unveiled Monday (see page 8).

ai???Prices will vary depending on the local markets,ai??? TransLink vice-president Bob Paddon said Monday. ai???It will bring us much needed revenues.ai???

TransLink projects it will raise $2.2 million by charging at the free lots and raising the prices at some of the pay lots.

The South Surrey park-and-ride is already heavily overcrowded, which led TransLink this year to start towing incorrectly parked vehicles.

Paddon said imposing pay parking should give motorists much better odds of finding a space at crowded lots in the future.

The hope is that more drivers who use park and rides will simply leave their cars at home and catch feeder buses nearby to avoid the parking fees.

TransLink plans to develop more park-and-rides in the future, including ones to serve the Evergreen Line in Port Moody and Coquitlam.

About 3,500 of the 4,300 park-and-ride spaces TransLink controls are already pay parking.

– with files from Jeff Nagel