Thank goodness we have a mayor who is in touch with reality!
At the last Mayors' Council on Transportation, which is TransLink's governing authority, Delta Mayor Lois Jackson voted against a proposal to have even a temporary increase in property taxes to fund TransLink's financial shortfall.
Apparently TransLink's take from gas tax revenues has decreased by millions as people are purchasing less gasoline due to higher prices resulting from, among other things, the carbon tax.
Part of the decrease is no doubt people driving less and switching to public transit. However judging from the line-ups down the 56th Street hill in Tsawwassen, a lot of people are deciding to take their business out of the country.
This has made TransLink less than enthusiastic about fuel taxes as a future revenue source. It would prefer something that people can't avoid. That would be property taxes. It is a little more difficult to pick up your residence and move it to Point Roberts - even if you do have a Nexus card.
As the mayor correctly points out, "it makes no sense to charge a senior citizen living in Tsawwassen a property tax rather than a road tax on those who are actually using it." Besides the issue of equity between who benefits and who pays, there is the further issue of accountability. TransLink could continue to gouge homeowners in ever-increasing amounts and not have to show any value for money as there would be no relationship between the user of the service and the payer for the service.
I would have more confidence in TransLink if it wasn't for its fare fiasco. It built a transit system with no control to ensure the users had paid their fare. I haven't been on every subway system in the world, so I suppose there might be others that are so slack, but I haven't rid-den them.
The SkyTrain system was to operate on trust. A fine thought, but neglects to account for the fact there are those among us who think someone else should pay for everything. The mayor of Vancouver and possible premier of the province have both been caught allegedly scamming the system.
Gregor Robertson was going to fight the fine because it wasn't fair to poor people, but ended up paying when it became public. (I never realized ex-MLAs were so impoverished.) Adrian Dix claims to have purchased an all-day pass but couldn't find it and got off with a warning. Hint to Di next time, just put it in your pocket.
They're not great role models for the fare-paying public and fare evasion seems to be growing. Turnstiles are beginning to be put in decades after the system was established. I wonder what the current value of all those foregone fares would be!
Before TransLink goes slapping more taxes on us home-owning seniors, it would be nice for it to get in touch with reality and get its act together.
