THE TRANSIT CHALLENGE

There’s hope despite Vancouver vote

In November 1997, voters in the Denver region, one of the fastest-growing municipal hubs in the United States, voted overwhelmingly against a plan to fund an ambitious new network of public transit with a small increase in taxes. The defeat was presented at the time as the product of, among other things, incompetent campaigning by the pro-transit side and a reflection of the city’s procar culture.

Seven years later, though, Denver tried again, and this time they got it right.

In 2004, Denver-area voters approved a small sales tax increase, with the money set aside to fund a comprehensive new system of light rail transit. They did so following a cohesive campaign, run as much by the local business lobby as by politicians, and in the face of a culture that remains resolutely car-first.

In the aftermath of the Vancouver region’s rejection of its own transit plebiscite, the results of which were made public Thursday, public transit advocates across Canada could be forgiven for engaging in a collective collar tug.

For transit planners in cities like Edmonton, Winnipeg and Toronto, all facing huge and expensive transit needs, the important question, then, is why did Vancouver fail?

Gordon Price, the director of the City Institute at Simon Fraser University, and a prominent backer of the yes side in Vancouver, says now the very idea itself was flawed.

“If you really believe regions have to move forward, referendums are destructive, expensive and destructive,” he said.

Price believes the no vote will bolster those across Canada who would prefer municipal governments not invest in big projects.

“From the point of view of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and the Fraser Institute and the C.D. Howe Institute and all the rest of that apparatus, what a winner!” Price said.

“You got people in Vancouver, for God’s sake, to vote against transit. You slayed the green dragon in its own den. They’ll be looking around for the next opportunity.”

Not everyone believes the Vancouver process itself was to blame.

“The way the referendum was structured was almost a gift to the yes side,” said Brian Kelcey, urban governance consultant in Toronto.

Kelcey thinks other cities could win transit votes linked to taxes and infrastructure. But they’d have to go about it very differently.

To get there, transit advocates would have to design plans that had wins for everybody, including commuters, transit riders and the rest, before they went to the voters, he said.

At the same time, Kelcey does think the Vancouver result — a resounding no, not just in the region as a whole, but in every individual municipality — should give pause to those who back a high-density, transit-first vision of Canadian city building.