OK, everyone. It’s time to stand up and be counted. Are you in favour of improved transit in our region?
If yes, do you have a better proposal to pay for it than a $0.02-a-litre increase in fuel taxes, plus some still-to-be-determined combination of vehicle levy, road pricing, carbon tax revenue or property tax increases? That’s where the regional mayors’ council and the provincial government have landed, working at a level of collaboration that hasn’t been seen in this region in decades.
As a key player on the Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation puts it, there is no Plan B. Either we take this difficult step or we stall on repairs and improvements to a transit system that’s vital to this region’s economic and social health. And to families, Premier Clark!
The gas tax increase has been portrayed in the media as simply a way to match senior government contributions and get the Evergreen Line from Lougheed to Coquitlam built, finally. Actually, the Evergreen Line is less than half the package of improvements in the TransLink plan.
It also includes:
- a 9% increase in bus service hours. (Bus pass-ups are now common in Vancouver, Port Moody and Surrey.);
- a new B-Line service in Surrey to connect Guildford, Surrey Central, and White Rock;
- a bus between White Rock and Langley;
- bus rapid transit on Highway 1 and over the new Port Mann Bridge in 2013, connecting Langley and Surrey with the SkyTrain network at Lougheed Station;
- SkyTrain station and SeaBus terminal renovations to add capacity; and
- restored capital funding for roads ($20 million) and cycling ($6 million).
Notice what’s missing from that list: any rapid transit along Broadway, the self-financing Burnaby gondola, SkyTrain extension in Surrey, a new Patullo Bridge, the North Fraser Perimeter Road, Vancouver’s downtown streetcar, the province’s promised new fuel-efficient buses… .
Just to get what is on the list, TransLink’s board, with the mayors’ council’s approval, has to come up with another $70 million a year. With a fuel-tax increase delivering $40 million, there’s still $30 million missing, even after TransLink’s purge of $55 million in internal costs.There’s a big opportunity to get this right, getting TransLink the steady long-term funding it so desperately needs to seriously reduce congestion and increase personal mobility. It starts with the unprecedented co-operation between TransLink and the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, with minister Blair Lekstrom promising that the province will co-sponsor TransLink’s next (2045) plan and help engage stakeholders in picking from a gnarly assortment of new funding sources in time for the spring 2012 legislation, thus bypassing a potential property tax increase.
There’s also a startling consensus of politicians and business leaders endorsing some form of road pricing.
A group of senior transportation decision-makers, politicians and business leaders brought together in May by the fledgling Sustainable Transportation Coalition supported using a portion of the post-2012 carbon tax (87%), a vehicle levy (68%) and road pricing (53%) to get the missing $30 million and more.
There’s widespread agreement that while these politically volatile new measures are necessary, they have to be finessed to allow relief to people in areas without transit, to people who drive fuel-efficient cars and to those who shift their travel to off-peak hours.
It’s so much easier to foment anger about increased taxes than it is to sell difficult improvements to build essential infrastructure. One gets you ratings and political popularity. The other gets results that make this region livable and prosperous.