The Chair of the Mayors Council for Translink says Provincial audit aside, major problems with transit funding and governance remain unsolved.
District of North Vancouver Mayor Richard Walton says 139 million per year in audit savings still falls short of what’s needed to improve the transit system, “The Minister, I think, alluded to the fact that this doesn’t solve the long term funding problems. As long as the city is growing and as long as ridership is growing, which it is and it is growing in a very healthy direction, Translink is going to need to increase the number of service runs. Everytime it increases a service run, 60 to 65 cents on the dollar has to come from something other than the farebox.”
Walton says globally very few transit systems have the luxury of being funded by farebox proceeds.
One of the options for funding Translink expansion is an interim property tax hike.
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