Metro Vancouver Transportation & Transit Plebiscite

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by Xerx

I don't get it, they trust their mayors with managing the funds for their cities, but can't trust them to manage Translink's funds?

It's probably not their own mayors per se - but the powerful mayors running rough shod over the smaller town mayors - and the bickering among them.

[Meraki]

But other than Corrigan (who doesn't care because Burnaby already as all its SkyTrain lines) mayors are supportive of the plan.

[st7860]

So the Mayor of West Van says no and claims they could provide free bus service for residents for the same amount of taxes paid to translink?!?!


http://metronews.ca/news/vancouver/1...ncouver-mayor/

Smith said the average homeowner in West Vancouver already pays over $800 in property taxes directly to TransLink in addition to 17 cents per litre in direct gas tax.

He said the city could provide bus service “entirely free to our citizens if we had that revenue.”

[lightrail]

Here's a great article from Jarrett Walker on his Human Transit Blog titled "Should I vote for a transit tax".

http://www.humantransit.org/2015/01/...ansit-tax.html

Jarrett is an internationally renowned transit consultant and he is responsible for the redesign of the Translink Transit map (you'll see part of it in his banner at Human Transit).

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by st7860

So the Mayor of West Van says no and claims they could provide free bus service for residents for the same amount of taxes paid to translink?!?!

I believe he said we should eat cake.

Of course you can provide that when those residents are paying $1k/yr to Translink and they never use the bus... Life is good for the 1%.

[SFUVancouver]

Originally Posted by st7860

So the Mayor of West Van says no and claims they could provide free bus service for residents for the same amount of taxes paid to translink?!?!


http://metronews.ca/news/vancouver/1...ncouver-mayor/

Smith said the average homeowner in West Vancouver already pays over $800 in property taxes directly to TransLink in addition to 17 cents per litre in direct gas tax.

He said the city could provide bus service “entirely free to our citizens if we had that revenue.”

If we want to start playing that game, then the whole notion of a regional transportation system is lost.

[Metro-One]

Would that include purchasing a fleet, storing them, maintaining them, and eventually replacing them as well? Not to mention all managing duties, hub / bus stop construction and maintenance, and any roads Translink might be responsible for in the city???

Such a bullshit comment from a mayor.

[go_leafs_go02]

http://www.bettertransit.info/

The YES side has an official page, that's not from the Mayor's Board.

Facebook and Twitter pages also available.

[WarrenC12]

SFU has started campaigning already as well. I think we've basically heard from everybody on the NO side already, the YES side is only getting started.

Remember when Vision let the NPA and LaPointe run around making headlines for a month or two? Then they showed up and used their well-oiled GOTV machine to win? Same thing could easily happen here, if they care enough, and can coordinate properly across the region.

It would be nice if the BC NDP would show up and support something like this. They are hopeless... as much as I have a problem with various things the BC Liberals are doing, particularly on transportation, we are basically in a 1 party province.

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

SFU has started campaigning already as well. I think we've basically heard from everybody on the NO side already, the YES side is only getting started.

Remember when Vision let the NPA and LaPointe run around making headlines for a month or two? Then they showed up and used their well-oiled GOTV machine to win? Same thing could easily happen here, if they care enough, and can coordinate properly across the region.

It would be nice if the BC NDP would show up and support something like this. They are hopeless... as much as I have a problem with various things the BC Liberals are doing, particularly on transportation, we are basically in a 1 party province.

I don't think the NDP can really say anything, because of the nature of the entire thing. If they say to support it, they're endorsing the Liberal's point of view to hold referendums on more things, wasting yet more money and delaying projects. That can only hurt them.

Like when "light rail" disappeared from the plebiscite's wording, I'm more inclined to vote yes, but the initial plebiscite I was sitting on the fence.

One of the recent polls I did take, but haven't seen the results of (I speculate it might have been by the province) asked questions like "what would make you want to vote 'yes'" type of questions and a bunch of points weighting statements made by the yes and no side and how much you believe those statements.

Like, after the rewording by the province on the plebiscite, the "support" went down, but that doesn't take into account that the NO side was the only side really saying anything up until that point. So I'd still of the opinion the YES side will win, but by not by a large margin.

The people who would normally vote NDP for ideological reasons, and big labor unions should be voting "Yes" since it will affect the bus driver union. But aside from that, it's too early to tell.

[vango]

Mr Johnston's latest letter to the Sun:
http://epaper.vancouversun.com/epape...3LK6ar8w%3d%3d

TransLink’s cost per revenue passenger is a full one-third higher than cities like Edmonton, Calgary and Toronto. Should not the public find out why before approving a new tax?
Part of the answer is unpleasant for both the Liberals and the NDP — it’s SkyTrain and light metro and the high costs and subsidies associated with them — as both political parties have forced SkyTrain and light metro onto the region. In 1993, the GVRD revealed that the original SkyTrain line from Vancouver to new Westminster was subsidized at $157 million in 1991. This subsidy has increased with each new SkyTrain or light-metro line opened. By comparison, the total operating costs of Tri-Met in Portland, Ore., including their first Max light rail line in 1993, was $114 million.
Now TransLink wants to build a $3-billion subway under Broadway to appease Vision Vancouver’s desire for a vanity project to make Vancouver a world-class city, despite the fact that subways are poor in attracting ridership, but good at bankrupting transit authorities. That the majority of regional mayors support this financial nonsense only confirms P.T. Barnum’s observation: “There is a sucker born every minute.” It seems, unlike the Yes side, the No side are not suckers.
D. M. JOHNSTON Delta

[Tfreder]

Originally Posted by vango

Mr Johnston's latest letter to the Sun:
http://epaper.vancouversun.com/epape...3LK6ar8w%3d%3d

I would love for him to go out along broadway and spew that bullshit to everyone waiting at the 99 b-line bus stops. Absolutely pathetic. Does he actually believe the broadway subway is being built to "attract ridership"? And why on earth should he expect to get a special bus connection from his south delta home in the middle of nowhere to the ferry terminal? He's advocating for translink to spend less... but is annoyed that translink isn't wasting millions to provide a route that would be barely used? Wow.

I can understand the point of view from some of those against skytrain, but this guy is completely insane (sorry, not sorry).

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by vango

Mr Johnston's latest letter to the Sun:
http://epaper.vancouversun.com/epape...3LK6ar8w%3d%3d

Is there not a policy at newspapers to not publish spam?

Malcom likes to make stuff up, and then doesn't source his "facts"

Here's Calgary's budget:
https://www.calgarytransit.com/sites...t-feb-2014.pdf

Take a look at this:


Also take a look at this, I edited it from the Calgary document to highlight Vancouver and remove the Calgary-only charts:


Now... what's wrong with this picture? How come Toronto has the highest cost recover?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio

Hong Kong and Japanese metro's have profitable recovery. They're all distance based.

Portland? 22%, down near the bottom.
Sound Transit? 22%, again down near the bottom.
King Country Metro(Seattle), 29.1%

Vancouver's closest equivalent is NYC (MTA)

[officedweller]

Probably because TTC only covers metropolitan areas - they don't go into the "boonies".
That's the turf of Mississauga Transit, Vaughan Transit, Markham Transit, etc.

It's the sparsely populated bus routes that skew the figures.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Probably because TTC only covers metropolitan areas - they don't go into the "boonies".
That's the turf of Mississauga Transit, Vaughan Transit, Markham Transit, etc.

It's the sparsely populated bus routes that skew the figures.

Definitely this. Make it Vancouver only, or even with Burnaby, New Westminster and maybe Richmond, and the number would look a lot different.

Isn't there any way to stop this Malcolm Johnston guy? Does he actually have any connection or prominence in transit? Because if not I don't understand why a random guy gets so much attention. Skewing people's perceptions by lying should not be tolerated. He's pushing an objectively inferior transit system and at the same time making Translink out to be idiots, when in reality we're lucky to have an organization that cares about people's commutes rather than putting out as many vanity projects (which is LRT, not SkyTrain) as possible.

[BCPhil]

Originally Posted by vango

Mr Johnston's latest letter to the Sun:
http://epaper.vancouversun.com/epape...3LK6ar8w%3d%3d

I wonder how long his transit trip would take if it were LRT?

He complains about it taking 2 hours from Tsawwassen to Burnaby for a medical appointment on Transit. I'm going to assume he means to Burnaby General.

First, doesn't he have a doctor closer to home? Heck, isn't Delta in Fraser Health and Burnaby in Vancouver Coastal? Even if it is for a specialist, that makes it an extraordinary trip, something that is going to take longer than a regular trip.

Second, Transit always takes twice as long as driving, unless you are going from and to an area walking distance from stations. As soon as you throw in a bus, your trip is automatically at least twice as long. Make it a bus to the middle of nowhere Delta, and it can easily be 3 times slower than driving. It takes about 50 minutes in traffic to drive from Delta to Burnaby Hospital, so making it 2 hours on transit is actually pretty good.

Third, having no Skytrains would not make this trip any shorter. Even in Portland, if you go from the suburbs to the University Hospital, you need to take a bus. Doing a trip that you can drive in 30 minutes to there, will take 1:30 on tranist (and that is from an area near a MAX station). It is no better and in fact worse.

Maybe he thinks if we didn't spend money on Skytrain, we would have more light rail. Maybe, but for damn sure it wouldn't go to suburban Tsawwassen down his street, and for sure wouldn't go to Burnaby Hospital. He would still have to take slow ass buses, and connect to a slower than Skytrain LRT.

I hate this guy.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by BCPhil

I wonder how long his transit trip would take if it were LRT?

He complains about it taking 2 hours from Tsawwassen to Burnaby for a medical appointment on Transit. I'm going to assume he means to Burnaby General.

First, doesn't he have a doctor closer to home? Heck, isn't Delta in Fraser Health and Burnaby in Vancouver Coastal? Even if it is for a specialist, that makes it an extraordinary trip, something that is going to take longer than a regular trip.

Second, Transit always takes twice as long as driving, unless you are going from and to an area walking distance from stations. As soon as you throw in a bus, your trip is automatically at least twice as long. Make it a bus to the middle of nowhere Delta, and it can easily be 3 times slower than driving. It takes about 50 minutes in traffic to drive from Delta to Burnaby Hospital, so making it 2 hours on transit is actually pretty good.

Third, having no Skytrains would not make this trip any shorter. Even in Portland, if you go from the suburbs to the University Hospital, you need to take a bus. Doing a trip that you can drive in 30 minutes to there, will take 1:30 on tranist (and that is from an area near a MAX station). It is no better and in fact worse.

Maybe he thinks if we didn't spend money on Skytrain, we would have more light rail. Maybe, but for damn sure it wouldn't go to suburban Tsawwassen down his street, and for sure wouldn't go to Burnaby Hospital. He would still have to take slow ass buses, and connect to a slower than Skytrain LRT.

I hate this guy.

Not to mention that put buses in their own lanes and it becomes the same speed as LRT, for much less cost. I'd really like to know what his objective is, because there's something strange about everything he says.

Yep. He used to just piss me off, but now I genuinely hate him. It doesn't help that I hate LRT more than anything else really, so when people make it out to be superior than metros it gets to me a lot more than it should

[vango]

Originally Posted by vango

Mr Johnston's latest letter to the Sun:
http://epaper.vancouversun.com/epape...3LK6ar8w%3d%3d

Just noticed this link I posted is for two letters, the one complaining about the bus ride to Burnaby is from JEAN WIGHTMAN South Delta followed by Jonhston's.
Anyone up to responding in print to these letters?

[xd_1771]

Maybe he thinks if we didn't spend money on Skytrain, we would have more light rail. Maybe, but for damn sure it wouldn't go to suburban Tsawwassen down his street, and for sure wouldn't go to Burnaby Hospital. He would still have to take slow ass buses, and connect to a slower than Skytrain LRT.

I hate this guy.

We likely wouldn't. Vancouver built more rapid transit than any other city in Canada, entirely with grade-separated rail. We beat even Calgary in terms of rapid transit km constructed. At the end of the day he's grasping at straws. Want to let the Sun and the newspapers know that, maybe fire the editors a (non-newsletter) email complaining about DMJ and with this link attached.
CBC: Vancouver Rapid Transit Growth leads Canada's Cities - Pembina Study

Originally Posted by officedweller

Probably because TTC only covers metropolitan areas - they don't go into the "boonies".
That's the turf of Mississauga Transit, Vaughan Transit, Markham Transit, etc.

It's the sparsely populated bus routes that skew the figures.

Yep. People who try to compare Vancouver with Toronto tend to not realize that Toronto's TTC isn't covering a lot of suburban routes like TransLink does. For one, people like to think that Toronto's fares are lower, when they're actually much higher especially if you have to commute between cities. I did an analysis on this a couple years back.

Anyway, now that we mention it... did anyone notice that in the CTF's comparison between CEO salaries on No TransLink Tax, Sound Transit is quoted but the much bigger King County Metro (which actually operates the Seattle inner-city buses) is completely left out? And then there's Everett Transit, Community Transit...

[WarrenC12]

Good Vancouver Sun article on the CTF, exposes some of their hypocrisy.

http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/...171/story.html