Just wait till we go on strike next month! ;)
Originally posted by Purecanadianhoney
I don't see how hard it would be to scrape out the head of your cock once in a while.
Translink & 0.5% vote (merged)
What do people think about adding 0.5% to the PST for transit? Taxpayers will end up paying for it regardless, increasing sales tax seems to spread the pain pretty widely. But, I trust Translink with my money about as much as I'd trust a drunken sailor. How's that Compass Card coming along Translink?
I really want to vote yes, but Translink's incompetency is leaning me towards no.
I know everyone always is claiming that TL is incompetent, but it ain't so bad. One of the highest farebox contributions anywhere, little things like the super-popular Canada Line are a huge success, and they wring a lot of capacity out of Broadway Ave with the B-line and can't achieve more without more funding. The Compass Card debacle is the fault of Cubic, not so much Translink and it remains to be known if TL is on the hook for any costs other than the fixed-price contract price.
A couple of Skytrain incidents this summer were bad, but I expect they'll learn from it. Remember when the TTC rearended a subway train with another and killed 3? Shit happens.
I have lots of confidence that with adequate funding they can get the proposed capital projects built. Evergreen Line is apparently progressing well, for example. This doesn't mean i have confidence in the estimated costs, simply because they are just that - early estimates.
The governance is strange, but no more dysfunctional than Metro Vancouver in the end.
Also we shouldn't be expecting public transit to be turning profits. Almost all public transit systems operate at losses and are heavily subsidized.
The Beijing subway alone is always heavily in the red, but it's comprehensive, is affordable for everyone and moves millions of people to their jobs daily.
I would be all for that extra tax if it was specifically to fund a broadway subway, because people would use the hell out of it and that would make a big difference with less buses on Broadway.
The one thing I miss about vancouver is the functional transit. Here in San diego transit is pretty useless. It is mainly geared toward rush hour only and still isn't great even if you happen to live/work on one of the few routes that have "good" service. Anything off that route or standard time and you are SOL. Residents in the city here (as opposed to suburbs) are crying foul because the city is expanding the trolley line and re-zoning neighborhoods around the new stations for higher density housing. The main concern is increased traffic. People here don't get it that if you make transit easier to use people might actually use it!
Bike commuting too you would think would be huge here given we have perfect weather. The City and county are are trying to make it better but commuters are boxed into corners by all the freeways and how hard they are to navigate around.
Vancouver has it down when it comes to commuting. Don't take it for granted.
lets jack the ferry rates to help pay for this as well….
How about the Translinks cops getting $80,000 annually?
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When guns are outlawed from transit dicks only evil doers will ride transit.
Freedom of contract. We sell them guns that kill them; they sell us drugs that kill us.
Anything that gets cars off the road is good to me. This place is already a shitshow and its going to be a huge fucking parking lot in 20 years if we don't start figuring out something now.
Most of the tax increase will be used to pay for a broadway subway. Yeah translink sucks but not having a subway there sucks more.
Subway + Politicians = Changing plan every 4 years.
"The $5 Canada Line YVR AddFare is applicable to travel departing from any of the stations on Sea Island (YVR-Airport, Sea Island Centre and Templeton) destined for Bridgeport Station or points beyond."
And what the hell is this shit? Imagine my shock coming back from Hawaii (with exact change on me) when I went to purchase two tickets to get to the Tsawwassen Ferry from YVR. $8? Nope, that'll be $18. Let's just say it was pretty low risk to just hope on the Skytrain to Bridgeport, and then pay our $8 to the bus driver.
"The $5 Canada Line YVR AddFare is applicable to travel departing from any of the stations on Sea Island (YVR-Airport, Sea Island Centre and Templeton) destined for Bridgeport Station or points beyond."
And what the hell is this shit? Imagine my shock coming back from Hawaii (with exact change on me) when I went to purchase two tickets to get to the Tsawwassen Ferry from YVR. $8? Nope, that'll be $18. Let's just say it was pretty low risk to just hope on the Skytrain to Bridgeport, and then pay our $8 to the bus driver.
Yea, making people using recent improvements pay for it kind of makes sense to me. It also doesn't cost any extra for regular transit users, and it is a significant improvement over the old options.
You're just too cheap to pay for the services you enjoy, and then you'll turn around and cry about it later when said services don't exist.
I'm up for the 0.5% increase if it goes directly to a tangible gain such as the Broadway corridor project. The main issue is like everyone else, I have a hard time trusting money with translink based on their past performance.
I'm up for the 0.5% increase if it goes directly to a tangible gain such as the Broadway corridor project. The main issue is like everyone else, I have a hard time trusting money with translink based on their past performance.
this definitely seems to be the prevailing attitude in a lot of places. people are generally supportive of transit, but not supportive of the way the system is currently being run or the people running it.
We don't know what our limits are, so to start something with the idea of being limited actually ends up limiting us.
Ellen Langer
When guns are outlawed from transit dicks only evil doers will ride transit.
I think people would be surpirised how many times per day TAPS is used, and what kind of incidents they respond too!
Originally posted by Purecanadianhoney
I don't see how hard it would be to scrape out the head of your cock once in a while.
.5 onto pst is the only thing that the general public could possibly swallow. Even then it'll have to be pre-digested for them and remember presentation is everthing!
A car registration fee or carbon tax (at pump I presume) would've guaranteed a revolt of the motorheads.
Beyond a Brdwy tunnel disincentives to driving in town are needed. I'm for cars designated odd/even and banned from city limits on their flip day.
Freedom of contract. We sell them guns that kill them; they sell us drugs that kill us.
Is be quite skeptical that all the collected taxes would go towards transit. The extra cash will likely be skimmed to "balance" the budget.
As for existing transit, there are a couple things that are done that I believe could easily be done better. The first is how you pay to use the bus. Exact change? For the longest time you could drop a bill into the money collector. Now, if you don't have $2 in coins you can't ride. I've been on buses in Europe where they take money and give change. Why can't they do that here? Then there is the charge for the distance you travel. If you get on a bus at Park Royal and go downtown, you pay $4 for a 10 minute bus ride. Meanwhile you pay half the price to go from Boundary Road to UBC, which is a much longer ride. Again, in European countries you pay by distance (they also have pay by distance on freeways).
It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities.
- Josiah Stamp
Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.
- H.G. Wells
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