BRIDGE FIRST:
As a panel studies how to fund transit, one mayor wants LRT and subway put on hold
Metro Vancouver motorists may be driving into a brand-new year stuck in the same old traffic jams, but at least they can take some pleasure in crossing bridges without paying the toll-man.
Promising to remove those hated tolls from the Port Mann and Golden Ears bridges is a key reason John Horgan ended up in the premier’s office. Horgan’s NDP won several critical suburban swing ridings in the May election, when drivers were steaming mad about paying tolls.
But how long will drivers get to enjoy tollfree crossings before revenue-hungry politicians dream up new ways to get their money?
The Mobility Pricing Independent Commission is studying a range of new taxes, fees, levies, surcharges and, yes, tolls as a way to pay for badly needed transportation improvements.
“Congestion on Metro Vancouver’s roads and bridges is a challenge many of us experience daily,” the commission’s website says. “Lengthy delays can leave us frustrated, stressed and wasting time that could be spent doing things we actually like. It’s time we do something about it.”
Doing something we like instead of doing a slow burn in traffic sounds great. But it could mean you’ll have to do something nobody likes: paying more money to the government.
“You could look at tolling all of the bridges, you could look at distance-based charges, you could look at time-of-day charges,” said Port Coquitlam Mayor Greg Moore, the chair of Metro Vancouver. “You could look at what London does, where they charge you a fee to drive into the central business district.”
The commission is also considering additional gas taxes, vehicle-registration fees and even a surcharge on Uber fares.
Uber, Lyft and other ride-hailing services are illegal in British Columbia, where Vancouver holds the dubious distinction of being the largest city in North America that doesn’t have such services.
On Monday, an all-party committee of the B.C. legislature begins a series of public hearings on ride-hailing. And the government has ordered yet another independent review of the issue with the goal of allowing Uber, Lyft and others to start operating by the end of 2018.
Could Uber passengers see a transit surcharge on their fares once the service is finally legalized?
“Why not? Why wouldn’t we look at everything that’s on the table?” asks Moore, who thinks Uber should be approved, partly because it would complement transit services.
“For people living in the suburbs, sometimes that last kilometre of your transit ride is the hardest part of your commute, because the bus might be running only every half-hour or, on weekends, every hour,” he said.
“If you can take the SkyTrain or your rapid bus to a depot, and then grab ride-sharing for the last kilometre for a couple of bucks, it makes the transit system work that much better.”
But will Metro Vancouver finally get ridefor-hire in 2018 after six years of debate and delays? And won’t drivers get mad as hell all over again if they have to pay an Uber surcharge and other mobility-pricing charges to pay for expanded transit?
The B.C. government wants it known that mobility pricing is not the province’s idea.
“Mobility pricing is being led by the mayors through their independent commission, not the provincial government,” said Lisa Leslie, communications director at the ministry of municipal affairs. “The mayors will make the decision.”
But Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan says it’s the provincial government that will have to approve, legislate and implement any new mobility-pricing charges slapped on drivers.
“They couldn’t simply say to the mayors, ‘Here, you go ahead and do it’ without provincial legislation and giving their approval,” Corrigan said. “So I can’t see them avoiding responsibility. They would eventually wear it.”
Corrigan has suddenly emerged as a key figure in the looming debate over Metro Vancouver’s transportation priorities and how they will be funded.
Corrigan was just elected chair of the Mayors Council on Regional Transportation, replacing Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, while North Vancouver Mayor Richard Walton replaced Surrey Mayor Linda Hepner as vice-chair.
Corrigan said his transportation priorities are different than his predecessor’s.
“The mayors’ vision has been very ambitious and aggressive and I think it’s because the previous chair and vice-chair have been pushing the projects in their own municipalities in lock-step,” he said.
He’s referring to the proposed Broadway subway line in Vancouver and Surrey’s lightrail transit lines, two projects Corrigan thinks should rank behind a different Job One.
“The reality is the first priority is replacing the Pattullo Bridge, which is well beyond its usable age,” Corrigan said.
Couldn’t all three transportation megaprojects be built at the same time? Corrigan doubts it. “I don’t know if there is any organization across Canada capable of doing three major projects like that simultaneously and doing them well,” he said. “If you don’t manage these projects in a very, very careful way, it can easily end up costing taxpayers a lot more money.”
I asked Corrigan if the Broadway subway and Surrey LRT should be delayed until the Pattullo is replaced.
“I’m not sure — I’m going to be talking to the provincial government about that,” he said.
It’s a comment that probably won’t please his counterparts in Vancouver and Surrey.
Get set for a new year of squabbling over which big transportation project gets built first and who will pay for them. Hopefully 2018 also includes a no-brainer: Finally approving ridefor-hire, once and for all.