Translink & 0.5% vote (merged)

Great job, Vancouver area residents! You really showed those Translink bums!

Now, prepare to wait an hour for your next bus.

:lol:

I enjoyed the angry facebook posts this weekend about how translink would be going ahead with service re-allocation even if their was a yes vote.

No campaigners: "Translink is a horrible inefficient beast and I won't give it any more money!!!"
Translink: "In order to be more efficient, we will need to re-allocate resources"
No campaigners: "WHAT?!? We demand better service!"

I look around, I see Skytrain, Sea Bus, buses, the west coast express, bike lanes . . .

How were all these projects funded before the idea of a 0.5% PST increase became 'necessary'? Why don't we just go back to doing that ?

I look around, I see Skytrain, Sea Bus, buses, the west coast express, bike lanes . . .

How were all these projects funded before the idea of a 0.5% PST increase became 'necessary'? Why don't we just go back to doing that ?

The Alex Fraser bridge was built with no toll [HTML_REMOVED] (to my knowledge) before Translink existed. How dat?

I look around, I see Skytrain, Sea Bus, buses, the west coast express, bike lanes . . .

How were all these projects funded before the idea of a 0.5% PST increase became 'necessary'? Why don't we just go back to doing that ?

Imagine when the relative population (and tax revenue) was zilch, yet they built roads, highways and passenger train routes (that were apparently not needed….). These days try can't even keep a crappy monorail running without a monthly meltdown.

It's hilarious that people want to pay more taxes to such an obviously useless government who outsources and privatizes everything to incompetent corporations.

Yes voters are super sore losers.

TransLink board meetings will now be open to the public. Now that's transparency.

To my knowledge, the Alex Fraser bridge was built with no toll [HTML_REMOVED] before Translink existed. How dat?

That's was when things were really badly run. We need to be back-charged for that bridge.

I look around, I see Skytrain, Sea Bus, buses, the west coast express, bike lanes . . .

How were all these projects funded before the idea of a 0.5% PST increase became 'necessary'? Why don't we just go back to doing that ?

It was a joke anyway. The Provincial Government abdicating its responsibility instead of doing what it is elected to do … come up with a plan, with costs and figure out how to implement it. The Federal Govt will end up having to chip in for this too (like the Evergreen and Canada lines). Imagine if we had to pay a 0.01% sales surtax to fund provincial parks, a 0.005% sales surtax for forest firefighting, 0.003% sales surtax for kids playgrounds etc etc.

More than one third of the total yes vote came from the city of Vancouver.

Fraser Valley was almost there quarters against.

It's like the split between NDP and Liberals in a provincial election.

More than one third of the total yes vote came from the city of Vancouver.

Fraser Valley was almost there quarters against.

It's like the split between NDP and Liberals in a provincial election.

The problem is this:

Mass transit cannot service anything but high population density urban cores affordably, efficiently and in a cost-effective manner. Servicing suburban sprawl will always be an afterthought. The problem is the disconnect in urban planning and development between where people want to live and shop and where they work. How hard is it to imagine neighborhoods where you could walk (or bike) to almost everything you need (including your work)?

The company I worked for needed to move to a new location because of growth. Employees handling office infrastructure found that the best place and lowest cost (by far) was in Burnaby. Bosses picked a downtown tower because, well, bosses have to work downtown. You can't fight ego.

Anyway, TransLink will get their money, just not from a PST increase voted on in a plebiscite. And maybe, just maybe, the provincial government will put some proper oversight into TransLink.

The Provincial Government abdicating its responsibility instead of doing what it is elected to do … come up with a plan, with costs and figure out how to implement it.

Pete McMartin has a good article on it here:

Pete McMartin: The transit plebiscite: Bang! bang! You’re dead!
Plan A suffers a fatal blow and there’s no Plan B. Back to the napkin

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Pete+McMartin+transit+plebiscite+Bang+bang+dead/11183751/story.html

Pete McMartin has a good article on it here:

Pete McMartin: The transit plebiscite: Bang! bang! You’re dead!
Plan A suffers a fatal blow and there’s no Plan B. Back to the napkin

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Pete+McMartin+transit+plebiscite+Bang+bang+dead/11183751/story.html

The provincial government insists the municipalities have room in their property tax regimes to fund transit expansion: The municipalities insist, Like hell we do. And if the public is aggrieved at the idea of a .5 per cent rise in the sales tax, would it be any more receptive to a rise in their property taxes to fund transit?

People are used to property taxes going up every year (mine went up 5% this year). They aren't used to hearing that the sales tax will be going up. Also, property tax is a pretty good proxy for the level of transit service (except for a few stupid-crazy-rich neighbourhoods) since being close to transit increases property values. If you are a homeowner, live near transit and don't use it, its your loss.

https://www.google.ca/search?q=transit+service+and+property+value

Or they could raise fares and get money from the people who are actually using the buses.