Metro Vancouver Transit Discussion

[nname]

I think we (or at least me) were talking about cancelling the 321 south of Highway 10, with only the B-Line going south of it.

[xd_1771]

^ ^ I don't even think he took the expanded 96 B-Line into account or read much into my idea of creating a more efficient FTN loop to replace local 351 service (dependent on 96 B-Line availability) and actually improve South Surrey transit connections outside of where FTN service extends on current routes....

I don't even know where this idea that "we're going to need more shuttles" is coming from because it completely blows this out of proportion, so I'm going to try this again.

Obviously the cancellation of 351 service south of the P&R without any other changes would be a disaster. My post earlier regarding my trip on 321 south -> 351 north had to do with an observation I was trying to make of the local stops on King George south of Hwy 10 to see if the bus bays are long enough to accomodate 60 ft buses (they seem to be) since if 321 is cut short at Highway 10 (nname's idea), these stops will need to be serviced by the future 96 B-Line (Guildford-Newton). It was a confirmation that his idea can work.

My idea takes his idea further by truncating more service in exchange for better community mobility through two new routes. It is likely that the local service south of the P&R is contributing much to the $5.4 million needed to fund 351, which is statistically only being used to 57% capacity. Isolating 351 to Hwy 99 so it need only adhere to scheduling variables on the highway will allow 351 to require far less buses on its remaining routing, allowing for a potentially even more frequent and more reliable service on Hwy 99 (i.e. capacity improves!) while the addition of an extra transfer with loss of local service south of the P&R on existing routing (a penalty) is well balanced by the full introduction of the 96 B-Line. The loss of local service resulting in both the 351 and the 321 not running on King George & 152nd (and, as I also proposed, removal of peak-only 352 service) creates a significant amount of funding that can be used to fund a full 7.5 minute 96 B-Line (given the planned 15 minute service is $1.5m, 7.5 minute service should be ~$3m) and enough may be left over to create a new loop service that runs on KGB, 152nd, 16th Ave, 128th St and Crescent Rd via Semiahmoo and the P&R - replacing 351 west of Semiahmoo and 352 with more frequent and all-day service - dependent on the savings this could be an FTN service, which would be a huge jump because 16th, 128th and Crescent Rd do not have FTN service.

If the 351 and 321 and B-Line all have to go that far on the same route then I think it is a far less efficient use of resources - a 7.5 minute 96 will already provide an increased capacity alone over both 321 and 351 with faster express routing. The replacement loop line I suggested could add totally new FTN service and improved connections to Crescent Beach and the entire South Surrey community. Outward connections also improve with the introduction of 96 B-Line vs 321 to Surrey, and potential/possible improvement in 351 frequency. It's an efficiency move that will inconvenience some and encourage groaning but at the end of the day, South Surrey commuters gain plentifully with both new and improved mobility options.

[GeeCee]

http://www.getonboardbc.ca/



TransLink funding model 'broken'

A coalition of students, business leaders, and residents is calling for a major overhaul of the Lower Mainland's public transit system.

The Get on Board BC campaign launched Tuesday with a media event at UBC.

Campaign director Tanner Bokor says the group is frustrated by insufficient funding for public transit and is calling on TransLink to improve and expand rapid transit options.

"Obviously, TransLink has a broken funding model as it stands," Bokor said.

"We have a funding mechanism that's unsustainable and provincial officials are unwilling to fully utilize what powers they have to raise funds, which is why we are saying what we've been given is not good enough."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/09/25/bc-translink-coalition.html

[nname]

Just have to laugh at the comments. Seattle actually put much more tax into transit than Vancouver. Its funny that someone points to an agency with only 20% fare recovery and say that's more efficient than one with 55% recovery. I guess the problem with TransLink's funding is that its just too open.

[Tfreder]

xd_1771, I do think that the idea you've brought forward is a good suggestion that could improve transit in South Surrey, but I don't entirely agree with this idea.

One thing to note is that the 351's main ridership isn't at the park and ride, it's the stretch of the route that's between the P&R and White rock centre. Unless there's tourists going to Crescent beach, the 351 into white rock usually empties out at white rock centre. I don't think that there would be enough ridership to justify the FTN designation of the 351's current routing west of WRC.

I don't think that your comparison of the 351's Vancouver portion being cut with your proposed idea is fair. The added transfer to the Canada Line was justified because it proved to provide shorter travel times for all riders to Vancouver. By adding in another transfer at the P&R, you would only be increasing frequencies at the expense of the overall travel time. I still don't think that adding in that extra transfer would bode well with the people who take the 351, which would take a hit on ridership levels.

I also don't understand your argument over the "accessibility" of using low floor buses over the coaches. You'll notice that most seniors that take transit all use the 351. I hardly ever see seniors take the 321 into Surrey Central. And anyways, won't the seniors/strollers still end up having to get onto the orions at the P&R?

To put it bluntly, I think cutting off the entire local portion of the 351 is too extreme. Why not just cut the route at White Rock centre and run your proposed loop bus between white rock centre and the P&R via 16th, 128th, and Crescent rd? This obviously wouldn't offer the same cost-savings as your idea, but it's a start.

Also, I misread your earlier post. I accidentally glossed over the 321 portion you wrote about

[CBeats]

Signed the petition, oh yeah...

[xd_1771]

Originally Posted by Tfreder

I don't think that your comparison of the 351's Vancouver portion being cut with your proposed idea is fair. The added transfer to the Canada Line was justified because it proved to provide shorter travel times for all riders to Vancouver. By adding in another transfer at the P&R, you would only be increasing frequencies at the expense of the overall travel time. I still don't think that adding in that extra transfer would bode well with the people who take the 351, which would take a hit on ridership levels.

Obvs we don't want to cut 351 as-is without the introduction of the full 96 B-Line (Guildford-Newton) down the corridor, with at least 7.5 minute (vs proposed 15 minute) frequency as I mentioned. The express/nonstop service (in combination with more frequent service) should balance the travel time loss for those into White Rock Centre while the loop service provides a new frequent connection with better travel time on the west end.

-------------

A UBC group launched Get OnBoard at a media release yesterday, and I've already been working on spreading the word about it. Definitely an interesting concept: to raise awareness about the problems and to encourage the forward-bringing of ideas and solutions, some that might perhaps end up being new.

nname: If I'm not mistaken I think a lot of the money coming in to help fund/operate Seattle's transit service is US federal funding grants, something Canada doesn't have.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

If I'm not mistaken I think a lot of the money coming in to help fund/operate Seattle's transit service is US federal funding grants, something Canada doesn't have.

Isn't US Federal money supposed to be used for capital, not operating expenses?

[Alon]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

Isn't US Federal money supposed to be used for capital, not operating expenses?

Yes, but vehicle purchases and some maintenance works count as capital.

[twoNeurons]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

Isn't US Federal money supposed to be used for capital, not operating expenses?

It amounts to the same thing. Federal money for capital expenses means less money is spend on repaying loans and debts and on expanding service, etc. It's just that capital projects are a more concrete, if you'll excuse the pun, way of allocating funds.

Seattle also has a sales tax for transportation. They have more options to raise capital, but it usually has to go to a vote.

The BC equivalent would be the carbon tax... which is apparently revenue neutral. I kind of think it's disingenuous the way they they approach the tax as revenue neutral. If the government's priority was to be more carbon neutral, then you'd want to allocate more funding to transit anyhow. Whether or not there's a carbon tax. The carbon tax is an opportunity to make the distribution of these funds transparent.

In the end, the money has to come from a taxpayer, whether that's through property taxes, gas taxes, carbon taxes, there's only one taxpayer.

But whatever.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by twoNeurons

It amounts to the same thing. Federal money for capital expenses means less money is spend on repaying loans and debts and on expanding service, etc.

But an imbalance of capital vs. operating funds causes trouble. It's a big problem with parts of the US highway infrastructure right now because they have a huge number of deficient bridges, etc. and no money to pay to maintain them. Yet they continue to build new or upgraded highways with seemingly no thought as to the downstream maintenance costs.

The same applies to transit. If an operator is tapped out with regard to operating funds, a bunch of new buses isn't going to be all that useful. It's basically the situation Translink finds itself in today.

[xd_1771]

I always thought that with the reversal of the HST, Metro Vancouver purchases without the PST (i.e. 5% GST only) could have a 1-2% sales tax added on top (taxes paid on those purchase are 6-7% over 5%) to contribute towards transit. As far as I'm aware, a similar sales tax setup exists in the Los Angeles metro.

[twoNeurons]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

I always thought that with the reversal of the HST, Metro Vancouver purchases without the PST (i.e. 5% GST only) could have a 1-2% sales tax added on top (taxes paid on those purchase are 6-7% over 5%) to contribute towards transit. As far as I'm aware, a similar sales tax setup exists in the Los Angeles metro.

It would have to be setup provincially. Municipalities don't have the power to implement a regional sales tax. Not to mention collecting the funds may be a challenge where systems don't exist to do it already.

I'll say it again, using the carbon tax to "allocate" the funds for green purposes would solve the problem.

What's the difference between the government coughing up capital for things like the evergreen line and coughing up a portion of the carbon tax for carbon-reducing improvements like transportation.

[Meraki]

Originally Posted by twoNeurons

What's the difference between the government coughing up capital for things like the evergreen line and coughing up a portion of the carbon tax for carbon-reducing improvements like transportation.

In the former, they can stand in front of cameras at a ribbon cutting ceremony.

[huenthar]

Originally Posted by twoNeurons

It would have to be setup provincially. Municipalities don't have the power to implement a regional sales tax. Not to mention collecting the funds may be a challenge where systems don't exist to do it already.

Well, maybe municipalities should be given the power to implement regional sales taxes... We can do that, you know; these things aren't set in stone for eternity...

[WBC]

Originally Posted by huenthar

Well, maybe municipalities should be given the power to implement regional sales taxes... We can do that, you know; these things aren't set in stone for eternity...

While I agree that province is not playing the ball on this issue I think that mayors and the cities and playing the pointless political game. At the end of the day as a home-owner and a car owner with a local job whether you have car levy, sales tax, property tax or income tax it is absolutely irrelevant to me as I will be paying it one way or another. So yes, the mayors have the power to properly fund transit if they want to through the property tax. Playing stupid and asking for some other magical source of revenue is a complete nonsense. What is the difference here? Same mayors have no problem jacking up property taxes for above inflation union salary increases (zero benefit to taxpayer) and paying for every other infrastructure project (of actual benefit to taxpayer) that comes to mind (water, sewer, new community centres, etc). But why is increasing property tax for transit a problem? Who does transit benefit? Locals. Who should pay for it ? Locals.

[Millennium2002]

The problem is more of people becoming more and more pinched for cash of late and feeling like they've been paying too much of late for transportaton in one form or another with all this talk from TransLink of "new revenue sources" or "funding requests" for the new capital projects + expanded service.

Add in random outbursts from others about "inequalities of service here vs there", "inefficiencies", and "excessive executive compensation", and this is where we end up. People blaming TransLink in one way or another who are totally convinced that a problem or problems exists when there might not be one.

I mean... do people not recall the incident of TransLink having to do a double financial audit just because the mayors didn't believe the first one + yet another request for funding from TransLink?

Unfortunately, TransLink can't really do much to counter this image problem in the face of local politicians who are totally convinced otherwise... instead it just waters things down - aka delays things - to appease them, which in some ways feels like adding fuel to the fire by giving the "cost fighters" some vindication and a drive to force more out of nothing.

In the end, I wish to remain optimistic, but this —... I mean, dispute... has been going on for almost 4 years now if not more... and I can't conclusively say we've reached the end of this childish blame game yet.

[huenthar]

Originally Posted by WBC

While I agree that province is not playing the ball on this issue I think that mayors and the cities and playing the pointless political game. At the end of the day as a home-owner and a car owner with a local job whether you have car levy, sales tax, property tax or income tax it is absolutely irrelevant to me as I will be paying it one way or another. So yes, the mayors have the power to properly fund transit if they want to through the property tax. Playing stupid and asking for some other magical source of revenue is a complete nonsense. What is the difference here? Same mayors have no problem jacking up property taxes for above inflation union salary increases (zero benefit to taxpayer) and paying for every other infrastructure project (of actual benefit to taxpayer) that comes to mind (water, sewer, new community centres, etc). But why is increasing property tax for transit a problem? Who does transit benefit? Locals. Who should pay for it ? Locals.

But if the public won't buy it, the public won't buy it. If the populace is generally against property tax increases for transit, which apparently is the case, then it won't get done, no matter how sensible it may be (especially given our paucity of quality political leaders). It may be irrelevant to you or I exactly what stream the taxation is taken from, but a lot of people seem to care a very great deal. People are very irrational about money - understandably, given how many seem to struggle with even junior-high-level arithmetic. People rack up huge personal debts and pay enormous sums in interest payments because they're fooled by low monthly payment plans. In the same way, people may be much more comfortable with an incremental, thus gradual and less noticeable, sales tax surcharge, than with one large extra amount appearing on their yearly assessment - even if the total amounts are the same. The large increase in a yearly bill seems much larger than a half-percent extra charge spread out over the year where they don't notice nearly as much. (never mind the other benefits of using sales tax, namely that you can spread it over renters and over businesses/industry who alse benefit from better transit infrastructure).

I'm just saying that funding transit out of property taxes seems to be unacceptable to the majority of the general public - maybe irrationally. That's why it's politically difficult. Other options, though, might be an easier sell. So either we need to find a more palatable stream to dip into for transit funding that the public would support - I would suggest a regional sales tax - or we need to come up with some real local political leaders who will be able to sell unpopular ideas on their electorate. Given your impression of our politics, which of those two seems the more realistic prospect?

[officedweller]

It's a political tug of war because the mayors want to breathing room to increase property taxes for their own pet projects within their municipalities.
At play, there' probably a selfishness involved where they want to keep their tax dollars only within their municipality and handing money over to TransLink is ceding control of those funds.

Note, however, that other Metro Vancouver infrastructure projects and functions are funded through property taxes - sewers, water lines, solid waste, etc.
Why is transit any different?
Probably because transit gets beat up on by the press, the public and the politicians. People have a greater "quality of service" interface with transit than sewers, water lines and solid waste disposal.

You don't see the public clamouring to spend $100s of millions of dollars to bring Lions Gate and Iona Sewage Treatment Plants up to tertiary treatment...

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by huenthar

If the populace is generally against property tax increases for transit

I'm a Vancouver ratepayer, and I'm not generally against property taxes for transit. But what I am against is the duplicitous nature of a provincial government which said that they would enter into discussions about other funding sources if the municipalities would implement a temporary property tax. It's become obvious that the government either never bargained in good faith or has reneged on that agreement.

The only leverage the municipalities have to bring the provincial government to heel is to withhold their end of that broken promise. In that sense, I support their actions.