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Originally Posted by dreambrother808
I am not entirely against fare gates. I just think we need to be realistic about them, especially with regard to Translink's current financial difficulties. Most likely, they will cost more than they save, and can we therefore really afford them?
Many of us here seem to want Translink to aspire to some kind of perfection, with every refinement and convenient feature that comes to mind, but in the end all of these dreams require resources. We can pout and demand all we want, but in the face of genuine financial limitations, how rational are our expectations?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WarrenC12
I don't want to turn this political, but the Liberals do need to step up and not keep pointing the finger at Translink. I'm willing to pay more either as a transit user, a driver, or a general taxpayer (I'm all 3) to see Translink get the funding they need.
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AMEN!
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Originally Posted by mezzanine
A longer-term solution would be a change in governance with translink/metro. translink has to spend, but it is limited with being able to raise funds. IMO, amalgamation may be an answer, so that you would have taxation with representation, have land-use planning with more teeth, but not be subject to regionalization as the prior incarnation of translink was.
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I'm curious as to what you're suggesting here... Can you provide more details?
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Originally Posted by BCPhil
They should make up for it by taking .5% of the HST and giving it to Translink. Many states in the USA use a portion of the state sales tax to fund transit, and even include a specific % increase for a specific amount of time to fund new projects on the propositions that go before voters.
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I once spoke to a councillor who had been on the TransLink board since it's inception and until it was reform by Falcon. He said that many politicians on that board had had discussions with the provincial government and were requesting permission to implement a small Municipal Sales Tax, money of which would go to TransLink. In this situation, TransLink would implement it and all the political retribution would be directed at the local board governance rather than the provincial government. I guess the government didn't want to deal with an angry and confused public, as they had to with the vehicle levy. Suffice to say, it obviously never came to fruition.
The stupid thing here is that TransLink was intially designed to give the region more control over it's our transport future. I think the difficulty from the beginning though was two-fold:
1. It followed the Metro Vancouver model of appointed local representation. Because of this, there was no sufficient way for citizens to express their dissent at a decision and remove said politician from office. Perhaps what TL needed was not a professional board, but the direct opposite - a full elected board.
2. TransLink was given limited funding options through it's provincial legislation. Perhaps this was partially due to the lack of visible, accountable decision makers for the organization. It's a simple case of taxation without representation. Because there was nobody in specific control of TransLink, there was this blurred line on who decides what, and thus who is increasing the fees and taxes.
Case in point, the vehicle levy. This was introduced by TransLink and they had full control to implement it - it's in the legislation. They were going to introduce it. However, because people complained loudly enough and partially blamed the provincial government (who were approaching an election and didn't want to lose votes), the NDP vetoed it.
What I'm coming to here is a theory. Perhaps if TransLink had an elected board that was fully accountable to the public for major decisions, this would allow the provincial government to finally push the organization off their desks and give it full autonomy. Then, if TransLink introduces a vehicle levy, there is nobody to blame but the elected leaders of the organization. The provincial government can say, we're sorry, but you elected them, it's not our jurisdiction, and we cannot interfere in their affairs.
The professional board is nothing more than a politicking at its best. The Liberals are trying to say, oh we can't control them, but everyone knows that's not the case, especially with the amount of interference the province does in the organization.
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