A Canadian Press story featured in, among other places, The Globe and Mail:
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Vancouver transit vote ‘case study’ in national transportation funding crisis
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Experts say the transportation problems faced by the region’s mayors are emblematic of a dilemma for many big Canadian cities: crumbling infrastructure threatening to buckle under growing populations and no money to fix it.
“It’s a huge problem everywhere,” said Prof. Patrick Condon, chair of the urban design program at the University of British Columbia.
“At the same time, the costs of maintaining the infrastructure are increasing proportionately, the taxpayers’ ability and their willingness to pay for that increase is decreasing. The current plebiscite is very good case study of that problem.” …
“This is about the future of the region – how it’s going to be shaped,” said transportation expert Gordon Price, director of the city program at Simon Fraser University.
The transit champions say upgrades are crucial for accommodating an estimated influx of one million more residents into the Vancouver region over the next 30 years.
Opponents have vilified TransLink, the agency that operates the region’s transit system, as wasteful. …
“Municipalities don’t have that many options for funding, unfortunately, under our system,” said Brent Toderian, a global city planning consultant and former chief planner for Vancouver. …
“It definitely frightens me when I hear other parts of the country speak positively about the fact we’re having a referendum,” said Toderian.
“That perception doesn’t understand the politics of what’s been going on here.”
Price, the Simon Fraser University professor, said that if the plebiscite fails, it will deliver a “devastating” blow to the made-in-B.C. vision of “cities in a sea of green” that’s shaped the region for the past 40 years.
“If we’re not going to tax ourselves anymore for these collective goods that deliver services broadly across the community? That’s a different kind of Canada.”
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If you like your irony obvious, then you’ll appreciate that the Globe story online comes with that little promo on the lower left:
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Ohrn adds his sardonic observation to this link:
As to who supports and funds the NO campaign, aimed at starving transit of any new funding, I leave it to you to surmise whose profits are maintained, and whose philosophies are served if the public denies this funding. And who is watching carefully.
Like many I am torn. One the one hand we need less cars on the road and more transit, especially RAPID transit.
One the other hand we already pay far too much in taxes, specifically because public sector salaries and their cushy benefits & generous pensions to age 95+ eat up far too large a share of the tax $s collected. The public sector, be it BC Ferries, BC Hydro, ICBC, BC Liquor Stores or TransLink delivers service far too expensively. A solid debate on public sector wages, and especially benefits is required.
It used to be you got a secure job, with good benefits and a secure pension in exchange for a lower salary. That is gone today. You get all of the above and a far higher salary, with the result that most civil servants and employees of quasi-government companies are 20-35% OVERPAID. That debate is missing in this transit debate. Taxes are OK if the employee costs were lower, so we had money left over for investments, more teachers, more social housing or to address homelessness, but far too much money is now sucked up by overpaid employees. Tax payers finally have a say to more taxes and vote: no. It has nothing to do with transit really, but with a realization that public sector unions have exploited their monopoly position from an employer that cannot go bankrupt.
As such, severe wage and especially benefit cuts or growth constraints are in order before tax payers are asked to pony up even more tax. Plenty of money is paid annually to the federal, provincial and municipal governments to fund rapid transit that cities like MetroVan require.
Also, what is missing is car tolls and parking fees which is the only way to reduce car use and congestion. Why do you have a right to park as many cars as you want in front of your house on a road you do not own ? Why not charge $80-100/month for that privilege and there is 1/2 billion $s for transit per year. Problem solved. Win/win all around. This is unfortunately not in this plan. Also missing a true RAPID transit alternatives from E-Van (imagine the mess after the viaducts are down), Van-west, W-Van, N-Van (below Marine Drive, for example), Langley, UBC, Delta, Tsawwassen and White Rock. All those communities get little, yet pay for it. More buses will just clog the roads further.
Yes to more transit, but no to this band-aid plan and and ever expanding civil servants apparatus.
Clarification about BC public service pensions: Pensions BC is self-funded from member contributions, typically 40-50% required contribution from the employee’s nominal wage or salary, and the balance (50-60%) from the employer (i.e., government corporation or agency). Both amounts form part of the “total compensation” that is reported through the media and assorted websites. Thus it isn’t valid to count BOTH compensation AND future pensions. Yes, the pensions are indexed (although full indexing isn’t guaranteed), so the starting payments are limited accordingly, with the objective of preserving a more-or-less constant buying power with inflation, based on investment earnings (which of course do depend on the private sector).
The objective of mandatory pensions is not only to provide a decent retirement life to individuals, but also to relieve future taxpayers from extra burdens, which we will have to bear for individuals who are not adequately covered
See further explanation at http://www.pensionsbc.ca/portal/page/portal/annual_reports/pspp_annual_report/pspp_2014_annual_report/message-from-the-trustees/.
That said, it’s fair to have an opinion about employee compensation in various sectors of the economy, private and public; and to lobby for change. But should that not span the entire range of pay scales, including the top of the private world? Do they somehow not come at some cost to the rest of society?
At this the plebiscite is a classic Hobson’s choice — take it or leave it. So by all means, vote “no” on principle, and lobby for a change in society, but without false expectations. Defeat and another reorganization of transit governance and funding will take a few extra years, and add to real costs (just as re-establishing a separate PST collection system to spite the HST). Reiterating my earlier comment today at https://pricetags.wordpress.com/2015/03/13/metrobabel-the-illustrated-mayors-plan/#comment-52685, in the meantime, expect things to get just a bit slower and more crowded; and some of the near term transit opportunity lost for a generation.