Vehicle registration fee eyed to generate cash for transit services
They just don’t get it.
The lower mainland’s regional mayors just haven’t a clue about transit and just keeps the money pumping into the bloated TransLink bureaucracy, which has achieved very little since its inception over a decade ago, except that is, for giving Vancouver the hugely expensive Canada line subway, because Vancouver’s politicians did not want light rail down the Arbutus Corridor.
It is TransLink’s (and BC Transit before) legacy of only planning for extremely expensive light metro for ‘rail’ transit in the region that has gotten Translink mired in a financial mess. Light metro, especially when built asAi??a subway costs tens times as much or more to build than light rail, but our transit planners will have none of this, as they continue to plan for pie in the SkyTrain for future rail transit. TransLink has deluded themselves and regional politicians with unreachable goals, funded by tax monies not yet collected.
Regional mayors, many goose-stepping in line with the tax and spend provincial Liberal party want to burden the taxpayer with even more onerous user auto fees, to protect the wealthy in Vancouver types who benefit from three light metro lines, an expensive trolleybus system, and TransLink’s upkeep on expensive bridges, from higher property taxes.
How long is this farce going to be allowed to continue?
With the likes of mayor Walton and Fassbender at the helm, forever it seems.
If TransLink’s planners spent as much time in planning affordable transit solutions for the regions transportation problems, as they do in dreaming up more ways to shake down the taxpayer, there would be no need for this ongoing financial crisis. Affordable is just not in TransLink’s lexicon, nor is it in Mayor Walton’s and Fassbender’s as well.
The utter stupidity that passes for regional transit planning is breathtaking, but the greater stupidity of regional mayors falling for Translink gross ineptitude, is just unimaginable.
It is just like Lemmings jumping off a cliff, one follows the other, without thought or care.
Vehicle registration fee eyed to generate cash for transit services
By Kelly Sinoski, Vancouver Sun March 19, 2012
Ai??Photograph by: Ward Perrin, PNGMetro Vancouver mayors are calling on the B.C. government to allow them to slap drivers with a vehicle registration fee as early as next year in hopes of generating $30 million annually for transit services without having to raise property taxes.
Metro Vancouver drivers face a potential vehicle registration fee next year as mayors look to generate $30 million for TransLink projects in the short term without raising property taxes.
The Mayorsai??i?? Council on Regional Transportation has sent a letter to B.C. Transportation Minister Blair Lekstrom asking him to introduce legislation for a possible vehicle levy or a regional carbon tax, which were cited as ai???short-termai??? funding options to generate money for transit projects, such as the Evergreen Line and rapid bus projects south of the Fraser.
The mayors argue there is ai???relative urgencyai??? in introducing the new legislation this spring in order to avoid a property tax increase in 2013 that would levy an average $27 on Metro homeowners. The mayors have already approved a two-cents-a-litre boost in the gas tax, which is expected to raise $40 million annually for the transit projects.
ai???At the end of the day, no matter what, it seems a user-pay philosophy is the right way to go as long as itai??i??s fair and equitable across the region,ai??? said Langley City Mayor Peter Fassbender.
Fassbender, vice-chairman of the mayorsai??i?? council, said a vehicle levy is already enshrined in legislation but the mayors require enabling legislation to allow the Insurance Corp. of B.C. to collect the fees on their behalf. Itai??i??s not known how much revenue the levy would generate, but the letter suggests it would be based on engine size, fuel consumption or emissions rating and would apply to both commercial and passenger vehicles.
Fassbender said the fee could also be ai???graduatedai??? across the region, meaning drivers in municipalities under-served by transit, like Surrey and Langley, would pay less than those in Vancouver.
ai???The easiest way is a flat fee on every vehicle but weai??i??re not sure thatai??i??s the fairest way,ai??? he said.
A vehicle levy was first proposed in the late 1990s as a way to finance the transportation authority when the agency was created by the provincial government. But it was scrapped by the New Democrats as a result of a huge public outcry. TransLink also tried unsuccessfully to introduce vehicle tax in 2009.
Lekstrom wasnai??i??t available for comment Monday but is expected to meet with the mayors next month.
The mayors are also asking the province to authorize more long-term permanent funding sources, such as a comprehensive system of road pricing ai??i?? which could see tolls on all bridges, roads and tunnels throughout Metro Vancouver, or drivers charged per distance driven in the region. Long-term funding options also include a vehicle fee or regional carbon tax, or a share of restructured revenue from the existing carbon tax, and higher gas taxes.
Fassbender acknowledged the mayors ai???might not get what we wantai??? but said they want to see what tools the government is willing to give them as it will take a few years to develop the permanent funding sources.
ai???We want to sit down and look at a whole suite of long-term issues so we donai??i??t have to talk about this every couple of years,ai??? he said.
The letter to Lekstrom also calls for the province to allow the mayorsai??i?? council to approve both TransLinkai??i??s base and supplementary budgets, and a review of TransLink by the provincial auditor-general or the new auditor-general for local government. The mayors have pressed for ongoing and independent reviews of TransLink.
ksinoski@vancouversun.com
Ai?? Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
And Portland, with its LRT and streetcars, is fairing worse, it appears.
http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructure/gov-portland-oregon-struggles-to-remain-leader-in-public-transit.html
Transit of any type costs money. Your anti tax position is simply anti-transit and even discourage investment in LRT.
I am too lazy to due it myself but maybe someone here would be interested in comparing the cost per rider of different new systems in operation in North America (costs trended to a common year with the same common year for ridership….probably APTA stats). I would assume Calgary would be the cheapest but it would be interesting to see the others. I would also expect that Vancouvers expensive mini-metros would do pretty good on a per rider basis. Deinitively room for improvement but seems to me Translink is one of the more sucessful transit agencies in North America (perhaps a low bar, but still) and your vitriol is a bit over the top. For the record at least in Switzerland those lovely transit systems are lovely because people and politicians made a decision to spend lots of money on transit. Encourage transit spending to improve the system. That means taxes of some type.
There is no real urgency to build another SkyTrain route (Evergreen Line) given the poor performance of TransLink. Vehicle use has exploded since the formation of TransLink. It isn’t even clear whether transit by TransLink even reduces carbon emissions with all the empty buses on the roads much of the time.
Any “rational” and ethical person in charge of TransLink would pare costs with less extravagant transit expenditures (LRT or streetcar transit as an alternative to SkyTrain transit) rather than incite a backlash with gas taxes, parking taxes and vehicle levies.
In truth, TransLink is desperate for cash to stay afloat, and the money for the Evergreen Line by TransLink is a ruse. TransLink can’t spend less; it requires billions of dollars “now” to cover its debts, and the Evergreen Line is an excuse for TransLink to tap into billions of future dollars from the federal government and from municipal taxpayers.
So far, only Mayor Lois Jackson of Delta and Mayor Derek Corrigan of Burnaby have been willing to stand up to TransLink. It is looking as if Mayor Dianne Watts of Surrey is starting to realize that the swindlers at TransLink are stringing everyone along for the crooks at TransLink to keep their $20,000 to $30,000 monthly salaries coming in for as long as possible. Finally, the media are turning on TransLink, and I’m predicting a rash of resignations and forced retirements at TransLink, soon.
Eric Chris, Vancouver
http://www.rockantenne.de/webplayer/?playchannel=alternative
Ftom the Vancouver Province Editorial Pages:
Re: Proposed new vehicle levy, with apologies to the late, great George Harrison’s “Taxman”.
Let us tell you how it will be
You, in that car, it won’t be free
‘Cause we are TransLink. Yeah, TransLink
We feel 35 per cent’s too small
We hope one day to take it all
‘Cause we are TransLink. Yeah, TransLink
If you drive a car, we’ll tax the street,
If you try to sit, we’ll tax your seat.
If you get too cold we’ll tax your heat,
If you cross a bridge, we’ll tax that treat.
Don’t ask us what we want it for (TransLink!)
If you don’t want to pay some more (TransLink!)
Now our advice for those who drive
Get on a bike, try not to die!
If you don’t start riding SkyTrain
The taxes, fees, levies will pain
‘Cause we are TransLink. Yeah-eh, Tra-Anns-Link!
And you’ll be working for no one soon but us.
What do you think? Email a brief comment, including your name and town to: provletters@theprovince.com.
© Copyright (c) The Province
Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/TransLink+Yeah+TransLink/6334961/story.html#ixzz1plB8izLt
The problem in the USA, as well as Canada is that we lack experts in streetcar/LRT construction. Portland’s first generation of planners have moved on and now have engineers over designing transit schemes, who have little expertise in building light rail. The main trouble it seems, is that, unlike Europe, planners have not done much to reduce the cost of construction, with modern building technique. The solution of course would be having universities providing degree in “Urban Transportation” like Europe.
Let us not forget that in Portland, every new LRT/streetcar line funding is approved by the taxpayer in a referendum style vote. Thus one must prove the need of a new line to the taxpayer. contrast this with Vancouver where the public get no say what so ever with the government forcing new SkyTrain on the taxpayer; “whether you like it or not.”
Due to light rail’s much cheaper costs to build and operate, it is far easier to establish a true P-3, in fact, as one expert told Zwei almost two decades ago, a BCIT/UBC/Stanley Park LRT could be built entirely with private money, not costing the taxpayer a dime! With SkyTrain, this is impossible,
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