BC mayors can't agree on TransLink funding

BC mayors agree on one thing: TransLink’s two week period for input in July wasn't enough, and TransLink must give the public more of a chance to respond to a new funding plan that includes an extra two cents per litre in gas taxes.  However, mayors remain divided on TransLink's proposal for paying for new transit projects.

Vancouver mayor Gregor "Extreme Green" Robertson and Surrey's Diane Watts support the plan, while the mayors of Burnaby, Delta, and Richmond are among its strongest opponents.  If this proposal fails, The Globe and Mail notes, "it will be the latest in a long string of failed efforts over the past two years to find a solution to TransLink’s $400-million share for the long-awaited Evergreen line to serve the region’s northeast cities – and ultimately, to find a formula for paying for future transit projects."

Besides the new gas tax, which would see Lower Mainlanders paying 17 cents per litre in local taxes alone on gas, TransLink is also pushing for extra property taxes.  The plan would only cover new projects, and would require the provincial government to pony up additional funding as well, potentially leaving mayors on the hook if the government doesn't come through.

Burnaby mayor Derek Corrigan, who leads a group of mayors opposed to the plan, said he will never support the TransLink supplement: TransLink is continually forcing local taxpayers to pay extra taxes because its board and bureaucrats make all the decisions about what will be included in the base budget and then go to local politicians for extra money.  According to Corrigan, mayors have no say in the choices the TransLink board makes, and TransLink has many times spent money in its base budget on things the mayors would never agree to fund through taxes if they had a say.

TransLink is known for forcing stupid and widely hated policies on its users, for mismanaging money, and for then coming up with loony ideas for raising more of it, leading Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon to call it a "disaster circus."

An area of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside has an unusually high number of pedestrian fatalities. So, in it's latest stupid decision,Vancouver city council has voted to reduce the speed limit along six Downton Eastside blocks of East Hastings Street from 50km/h to 30 km/h.  The new slow zone (between the two red marks on the map, left) is a major artery into and out of the downtown core, heavily travelled by buses, cars, taxis and delivery vehicles.

The new slow zone's halfway point is Hastings and Main which, not coincidentally, is also the location of the city's largest open drug market, where narcotics are bought, sold, and consumed openly approximately one block from a large police station and a courthouse.  As anyone who has ever driven along Hastings Street between Cambie Street and Glen Drive will tell you, the issue along the stretch is not speeding drivers, and surveys have confirmed this.  Rather, the problem is the high proportion of junkies, alcoholics and mentally ill people who live and congregate in the area, and who regularly run out into the street without warning or--whether because they're too high or too sick to care about their own safety or anyone else's--simply wander into the road without looking.

Instead of doing something useful, sensible, and effective, such as installing barriers that prevent people from crossing the street except at controlled crosswalks like they do on dangerous streets in other major cities, in its latest idiotic decision, city councilors have decided to punish drivers who are already obeying the law.  Even worse, they have ignored studies going back as far as 1998 which show that changing speed limits on low and moderate speed roads has no significant effect on traffic speed or the number of crashes. 

Of course, new road rules require education and enforcement, and both cost money, but there has been no word on where the money will come from.

Gregor "Green at Any Cost" Robertson

Gregor Robertson's pet project, the pointless and underused bike lanes in rainy Vancouver's downtown core, have cost local businesses $2.4 million so far, a loss that is being spun as "relatively moderate."

Charles Gauthier, executive director of the DVBIA, said this “moderate” economic impact cannot be taken lightly:

“It is clear the separated bike lanes do have an economic impact.”

Helen and Bong Chung have owned the Edelweiss Cafe on Hornby for 18 years.  They say business is down 30 per cent because of the bike lane: 

“These bike lanes have not been good for business.” 

The Chungs say they may be forced to close.

The city says the bike lanes should stay while additional data is collected.  Its solution is to "encourage" cyclists to "frequent businesses along the bike routes."

The study shows the bike lanes have resulted in increased travel time, and overall public opposition to the lanes remains the same.

Vancouver mayor Robertson's "wild green plan" to "cripple" city

On Thursday, city council nearly unanimously approved the Greenest City 2020 Action Plan, a 162-page manifesto created by Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson. Only opposition NPA Councelor Suzanne Anton voted no. The plan’s first "priority action item" was quickly approved.  It requires water meters on all new homes at an annual cost to the taxpayer of $500,000. 

The new plan includes a myriad of recommendations, calls for higher fees, and warns of "significant financial investments," yet provides no cost analysis. The plan is all but guaranteed to be a financial disaster; in fact, it explicitly aims to increase the cost of living in a city which is already among the least affordable in the world.  Among its statements: "[green policy must] affect people’s finances in positive and negative ways"; "energy is too cheap" and City hall must lobby for increased energy prices and the creation of "pay-as-you-drive insurance premiums" and "road and/or congestion pricing."  And you thought the HST was bad.  If this plan is allowed to proceed, expect to pay more for water, home heating, gas, electricity, insurance, parking, and roads.  And that's just the beginning.  Robertson also wants to drastically reduce the amount of street parking, and to eliminate parking in apartment buildings.

"If you're going to go out there and spend hundreds of thousands if not millions or tens of millions of dollars trying to retool the public service of Vancouver around some fanciful green dream, then you're going to have to go out there and try to explain to voters why they don't want to let them know what the cost of it is." -- NPA Coun. Mike Klassen.

Meanwhile, Coun. Anton said she sees "whole new layers of city bureaucracy, more wacky green projects, and more taxpayer-funded consultants." 

Robertson is known for forcing other costly "green" initiatives on Vancouver, such as the ridiculous and mostly unused bike lanes in the middle of the downtown core.  If he is reelected in November and retains a majority, he will have at least three more years to institute his latest plan.

Read the entire plan here (PDF).