Empty lot earns TransLink Teddy award
Canadian Taxpayers Federation takes aim at tax-funded $4.5-million project that isn’t being used
Like the hospital with no patients in the old British comedy Yes Minister, like the “road to nowhere” in Alaska that leads to a non-existent bridge, TransLink can boast of an expensive, tax-funded project that isn’t used, too. It’s a vacant lot. The problem is, it’s also a parking lot, a lot no one parks in, and it cost $4.5 million to build.
“Aren’t there better ways to spend that money?” Jordan Bateman, B.C. director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, asked.
“I’ve been here four times during workdays and there has never been a car here.”
The lot was paid for by the province, while TransLink manages it. It was built to handle overflow from the original park-and-ride lot at King George and No. 99 highways.
The new lot’s completion coincided with the introduction of a $2 daily parking fee, which drove many commuters to nearby side streets.
The CTF’s complaint is, that if paid parking was going to be introduced, TransLink should have waited to see what the effect on demand would be before the new lot was approved and built.
Gregory Thomas, the federal director of the CTF, accused TransLink of lacking business savvy and being “hopelessly” out of touch with its customers.” TransLink wasn’t amused. The transit operator took umbrage with the CTF saying TransLink paid for the lot.
“This is absolutely incorrect,” the company said in a note to Thomas. “To respond to overcrowding at the previous lot, the expanded parkand-ride was developed as a partnership between the province and TransLink. The province funded the project’s capital costs and contributed to the land purchase. TransLink is responsible for operating and maintaining the lot. That is, the Province of British Columbia funded the $4.5-million expansion project.
“Please issue the correction on your online story. In the future, please check your facts with us to ensure accuracy.”
To which Bateman said poppycock.
“TransLink made this a priority,” he said. “The province funded it, TransLink administers it. Their website was full of press releases praising it, so they certainly didn’t fight it.”
The new lot has spaces for 366 vehicles. From its far corner it’s a good five-minute walk to the lone pay station, at the bus bay.
Hamming it up, as he said, Bateman was chauffeured around the lot holding the golden pig head out the window, as Taxman by the Beatles played from the car’s speakers.
“TransLink is always a strong contender for a Teddy, which is synonymous with waster,” Bateman said.
Teddies, named after a federal civil servant who once billed the government for a $700 lunch for two, also went to the federal department of employment and social development for spending $2.5 million promoting a job-grants program that as yet doesn’t exist and Toronto’s former Pan-Am Games boss for his $550,000 salary running a project that is $1.1 billion over-budget.