Transit Referendum on TransLink 10-Year Plan and Broadway Subway (UBC Line)

So some important developments. The Mayors Council has proposed a 0.5% regional increase to PST to fund the 10 year transit plan. By regional PST increase, I assume they mean that only Metro Vancouver will have 7.5% PST while the rest of the province will remain at 7%.

They have also come up with the referendum question which will be:

I'm not sure if this will pass as an increase in PST won't be popular with the general public, especially after all the HST debacle. However, I think it's important to keep in mind that one of the reasons why the GST was lowered was so the provinces could increase the PST to fund provincial projects. We've had a 2% reduction so a 0.5% increase to fund improve transit and reduce congestion is reasonable.

It's interesting how they are framing the referendum as "Cut Congestion" to better appeal to drivers.

See the news release here: http://mayorscouncil.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/FINAL-Mayors-Council-News-Rls-Dec11-14.pdf

What are your thoughts on the PST increase and the referendum question?

 

I don't support the PST hike because its' the condo developers who should fund this because they will profit and benefit the most.

Say No to 7.5% PST!

 

Video by highway engineer Matt Taylor on Growth and Mobility in Metro Vancouver


Vancouver Board of Trade's President and CEO, Iain Black on behalf of Better Transit and Transportation Coalition


Please remember that there is no plan B. A no vote is a vote for nothing.

 

The proposed 0.5% sales tax gets a new name: Metro Vancouver Congestion Improvement Tax

New ballot referendum question:

Interesting how they removed the bit about independent audits. So much for Christy Clark's multiple choice transit referendum.

 

I support transit upgrades to the system.

However, I'm not entirely sure if I support the one which is currently being proposed by Translink.

For example, instead of spending all that money for a Broadway line to Arbutus, why not extend the line to Cambie and Broadway only, and then have users take the Canada line down to Southwest Marine, and an LRT line from Cambie/Southwest Marine out to UBC out to the Endowment Lands?

It might save the taxpayer a lot of money and still get the job done, plus it would at least get built. One major flaw of the current Broadway proposal is that the 2nd phase out to UBC might not ever get built for lack of funds and cost overruns of the current plan. It may end up being the SkyTrain which ends up solving nothing and goes nowhere. Sort of like the current Lions Gate Bridge, where upgrades were made to widen the bridge, but nothing was solved since we're still stuck with 3 lanes instead of an additional lane which should have been added to make it 4.

Planners seem to diss a light rail proposal, but its been implemented in other cities. For example San Francisco has already built and had a light rail system going from its downtown to San Francisco University for over 3 decades. It works. Thousands of students take it every day.

I don't mind tansportation upgrades, but the current one seems to pie-in-the-sky-ish. They need to get back down to earth and work realistically within the funding which has been proposed. Its evident that the 3 bil proposal out to UBC would cost the taxpayers far more than has been indicated. Try more like 6 or 7 bil+? Especially if they're gonna do a phase I and then a phase II. The longer they extend out the project and make it more grandiose, the more its gonna cost.

 

Another possibility might be to build a line along Broadway from Commercial out to Arbutus, and then connect to an LRT along the existing train tracks which run along Arbutus down to Southwest Marine Drive and heading out to the Endowment Lands.