Metro mayors push for TransLink governance review
The Metro Vancouver Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation is urging the provincial government to move ahead with a promised review of TransLink’s governance structure.
In their election platform, the B.C. NDP said they would “work with Metro municipalities to develop a new TransLink governance model that provides the structure, the funding model and the certainty to make good transportation decisions to manage the system well.”
The mayors are holding the new government to that promise, resolving during an in camera meeting in July (the results of which were just released) that they would ask the province to announce it will review the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority Act, which created TransLink, to consider governance changes.
TransLink is governed by a board of directors, considered the decision-making body for the transit authority, and the Mayors’ Council, which approves transportation plans and long-term strategies. The 11-member board is comprised of seven people appointed by the council, the council’s chair and vice-chair, and up to two members appointed by the province.
“Really, it’s a holdover from the previous government and the previous issues where we had suggested some time ago that … frankly, the governance model at TransLink needed to have a majority of people around the table who were elected by the people,” Surrey Mayor Linda Hepner, who is vicechair of the Mayors’ Council, said of the resolution.
Hepner said there have been some positive changes to the structure. She said elected officials have been included in a number of committees and there have been joint meetings of the board and council.
When asked about the resolution, Minister Responsible for TransLink Selina Robinson said, “Right now it is in my mandate letter to do a review and that’s something we’ll be certainly taking a look at.”
In fact, the review is not mentioned in Robinson’s mandate letter, although funding the Mayors’ Council’s 10-Year Vision for Metro Vancouver Transportation is.
Regarding when the review may take place, Robinson said, “Not as of this very second.”