PALMER: TIME TO PUT TOLLS ON THE TABLE

To-do list undone: Stone is off TransLink, but is still responsible for Massey Tunnel replacement, making further avoidance of issue impossible

When Premier Christy Clark shifted cabinet responsibility for TransLink from Todd Stone to Peter Fassbender last week, she praised Stone for his two-year contribution on the Metro Vancouver regional transportation file.

“I would personally like to thank you for the work you have done on improving transit and transportation options across B.C.,” Clark wrote in a July 30 revision to the mandate letter for the transportation minister. “Your work with the mayors’ council to provide voters with both a vision for Metro Vancouver transit and a method to pay for those improvements was well done.”

Well done? In the sense that the proposed regional sales tax was burned to a crisp in a region-wide plebiscite, perhaps.

Still the premier professed to see a bright side: “Metro Vancouver voters appreciated the opportunity to make their voices heard on those issues, and the issues surrounding TransLink itself.”

Then her rationale for the hand-off to a new minister, Fassbender, who was put in charge of local government as well as the transportation authority: “The issues surrounding TransLink following the outcome of the plebiscite are now inextricably linked with taxation issues facing local governments in Metro Vancouver. Questions surrounding taxation and the significant funds that will be required to pay for the transit improvements outlined in the mayors’ council vision for transit and transportation are best dealt with by looking at issues facing communities as a whole.”

But even as the premier assigned responsibilities for the TransLink structure and funding formula to the new minister, one key regional transportation financing issue remained to be addressed by Stone himself: namely a review of the provincial government’s selective tolling policy.

Stone made the commitment not long after he was appointed transportation minister, framing it as an issue of “fairness and equity for the hardworking people south of the Fraser,” who were already paying tolls on the new Port Mann Bridge.

“I will commit to everyone in this room that one of my goals high up on my to-do list is to bring forward B.C.’s tolling policy for a vigorous discussion and debate,” he told the Surrey Board of Trade.

That was November 2013. Notwithstanding Stone’s claim that the review was high on his list of priorities, he has been making excuses for putting it off ever since.

But there’ll be no avoiding renewed calls for the review once he gets going on one item still on his ministerial to-do list after last month’s revision: “Continue consultations and planning for the replacement of the George Massey Tunnel ensuring construction begins in 2017.”

Stone’s Transportation Ministry is behind schedule in delivering a project scope and business case on the proposed replacement, as those were supposed to be released for public discussion in the spring of 2014. Instead, the ministry says they will be out this fall, meaning a year and a half later than the release date set by the premier herself.

The plan, when it does come, is expected to call for a 10-lane bridge, priced in the same $3-billion range as the new Port Mann, funded by tolls.

Meanwhile, those folks using the Port Mann and patiently awaiting a review of the tolling policy will be paying more starting mid-month. The provincial Transportation Investment Corporation recently announced a five per cent hike, pushing the basic oneway rate to $3.15 from $3.

Tolls also loom large for another crossing, as the replacement for the Pattullo Bridge is also expected to be financed by tolls. Indeed there has been more wear and tear on the Pattullo of late, as commuters divert to its weary but still untolled 80-yearold structure to avoid paying on the Port Mann.

The Pattullo is not a provincial bridge. It is owned by TransLink, which already maintains one tolled crossing in the Golden Ears Bridge.

The distinction between who owns the bridges matters to buck-passers in the respective governments. But I expect that folks in the region care more about the prospect that they are already paying tolls on two crossings of the Fraser and will be paying for two additional crossings before long.

Doug Allen, the departing CEO-cum-troubleshooter at TransLink, suggests the transportation authority be restructured to transfer responsibility for roads and bridges elsewhere, leaving the organizational focus strictly on transit. “The core business of TransLink is transit, not bridges and roads,” he told me during a July 23 interview on Voice of B.C. on Shaw TV. “I think you have to have a look at that because the core business is really what you’re trying to drive. And what we’re trying to drive, in my judgment, is ridership. We want ridership up.

“But we play a fairly important role in bridges and roads,” he added. “That’s when you look at the mandate, you might say, ‘Well, there may be a better way to organize this’ … It deserves some consideration.” Plus it could dovetail with a review of the tolling policy on both sets of river crossings.

Fassbender has already embarked on a review of the options for a TransLink makeover. Twenty-one months after Stone promised “to bring forward B.C.’s tolling policy for a vigorous discussion and debate,” the time is ripe for the Liberals to launch into that exercise as well.