The new CEO took a pay cut and will be making $564k. They're also phasing out long-term bonuses for senior executives and cut a senior position - so they're actually saving quite a bit of money every year.

$564k still seems like a lot of money, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to BC Ferry's budget of almost $800 million.

I imagine most people here want to continue the North American lifestyle of single family residences with 4 car garages into perpetuity. I get it - I grew up in one such home in East Van and if I won the lottery, I would buy one such home on the west side so that I could build my garage and have a stable of machines.

If you want good transit, then you have to sacrifice something. Living space and/or taxes. Sure you could fire the bureaucrats and have $10/hour monkeys drive the buses, but these are just minor issues.

If you want to continue automobile use, then you have to dismantle the agricultural land reserve regime, allow developers to build new subdivisions, and start expropriations of inner city neighbourhoods (think the Cassiar tunnel but multiply that 100 times) so our freeway system can be expanded.

Or you could continue the status quo with incremental changes over time so that people can adjust their lifestyles accordingly.
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IMHO, GVR simply does not have the population or the density to support Translink.

Places like HK, Tokyo, Taipei or any other cities with very well developed subway or similar transportation system share one thing in common: they have the market size to support it.

GVR has around 800 people/km2 with 2.2M total. In comparison, Taipei has 2800/km2 with more than 8M, NYC has 2000/km2 with 18M, and Tokyo is over 6000/km2 with 13M.

Why is Vancouver making decisions like these hyper populated cities?

lol i can imagine small business owners on the tolling roads will have an up rising cuz everyone is gonna drive down the next block

=.=

Bingo. Why we are building the evergreen line, I have no idea.

That's quite an ignorant statement, you've obviously never attempted to drive a vehicle the size of a bus through downtown. Having done it myself many times, I can definitively say, I rather drive the Coquihalla through a white out with summer tires on a RWD car. Bus drivers earn every penny they make.

Your statements on dismantling ALR "regimes" is also completely illogical...
Not really sure where you were going with that.

Yep so they tax the shit out of us to build all these lines and implement new buses and at the end the market and ridership simply does not support it. And every year when they need money for maintenance...guess whaaaattttt...yep more taxing woot

Comparing HK transit to Vancouver transit is the most retarded thing ever (not saying you are saying it, just people in general who say it).

You guys all want cheap transit, cheap schooling, cheap housing but high salaries. First let's start with those complaining about paying high taxes. I find it ridiculously funny when people who are in university complaining about paying for public transit taxes when they drive. Most of the comments are "I don't use it, why should I pay for it?". Then the same people complain that education fees are too high and want it to be lowered. So what the fuck do you want? Do you think the people who do not go to universities want to pay for YOUR education as well? Would you rather see a 200% increase in tuition if you didn't have to pay any cost for public transit? Why is it you want things fair for you, but when it comes down to people helping you out, you want more? This applies to everything. This is Canada where we have great social programs and live in a society where we are taxed and help others even if we have no direct benefit.

Then we have people complaining the costs are too high but expect $10+ for working at McDonalds. Would you rather have lower salaries and lower costs as well? Would you want to work for $3.60 working at minimum wage but have cheaper transit etc?

Ok, let's look at HK for example. The minimum wage there is $3.60 per hour. The average income per person is $1,279.6 and the average household income is $2,559CDN per month. That HOUSEHOLD as well. As an average person, that is LESS than minimum wage in Canada. To cross the harbour, the rough MTR cost is $1.4CDN traveling for 10 mins. Driving in HK is a luxury, a high end one where not many people can afford. Gas is double of Vancouver, parking, and fees as well. I am sure majority of you enjoy driving. You have the option of driving for 10 mins to get to a location while taking public transit for 60mins, you will drive. It's the same here in HK but people are FORCED to take public transit. Some of you guys wouldn't. People like to just drive around in Vancouver for the hell of it, go for cruises etc. Yes, it is fun and its part of the lifestyle, but it just proves that people WANT to drive.

If everyone was willing to not drive, take public transportation then yes, the system will be better. But as long as the mentality is that "I would rather drive 10 mins and save 50mins" it will never work.

Then why don't YOU work as a CEO for BC Ferries or in the public sector? Obviously they are paid well because the demand and supply warrants it.

The problem is not about paying it. It's about if it was a good expense to begin with.

GVR is big and we have very little population in this city. Instead of making all the taxes to build something that only a fraction of population in GVR can use, why not check if there's any other alternative that's better suited for the local economy?

Translink keeps losing money for a reason. They can't achieve the economy of scale required to break even. And the problem is that we didn't even have the scale to begin with. The more population Translink tries to reach, the more money it would lose.

Translink charges $4.xx for a trip for 3-zone and loses money. The subway in Beijing, China is 30 cents and it's profitable. Last time I checked, GDP/PPP in Van isn't over 10x of that in Beijing.

Majority of people in BJ can't afford cars or public transport which is why they need to make it 30cents. Not only that, it encourages people to take the transit. Even if transit is FREE in Vancouver, people won't take it. If you need further proof of that, look at all the university students who have a UPASS but STILL drive to school. Yes, it may be 1 to take a bus, but guess what, that's how long it takes in "better" public transportation cities as well.

What's worst is we spend hundreds of millions of dollars to ship people into downtown from places of low density while downtown has 3 stations on the Expo line.

See the TO subway map. The subway does a loop of downtown so people who live downtown don't need to drive. AFAIK their subway pays for itself.

http://subway.umka.org/maps/toronto.gif


You're being sarcastic right?

It can quite easily be green. But to do so it would need to be electric like the urban trains in Europe. The trains here in South Bavaria are diesel.

I don't agree. It's more the mentality here than the density. I've been to much less dense areas and tons of people take the train/transit. At the end of the day, it comes down to convenience and efficiency. If it cost less to take transit, took less time and I could sit and lounge for an hour rather than be in traffic I would do it in a heartbeat. But we have the N/A mentality of 'need to drive everywhere.'

Part of living in a socialist country. Don't like it? Leave.

I was actually trying to be facetious.

There's a ton of ignorance in this thread. Bus drivers make 50K a year and I know it's a tough job - most people on here don't know that though. And dismantling the ALR is of course ridiculous too, but you know, people on here seem to think that density is a waste of time and a retarded idea. But, what is the alternative? Continuing the growth of single family residential?

Most people are bitching about being taxed to death and Translink overstepping its bounds. Great. But no one is posing alternatives. Build more freeways? Sit and do nothing? (and sit through traffic in on the No.1 in the morning and evening.) People are moving to the suburbs because it's more affordable, so how do you accommodate that growth? No one has proposed anything.

The other thing that hasn't been touched on is the fact that Translinks budget problems are not solely their own. They have responsibility for roads as well as public transport. For that, they get an assigned budget as well as income from transport.

As the roads generate no income, and the gov't dictates how much they get, they really are kind of up against the wall. They only have control over their income from buses. Of which, even that is regulated.

So here is my problem. The provincial government wants to promote a low tax rate, and doesn't send them enough to provide for reasonable growth and investment. This leaves them constantly short. Thus, we need to start looking at stupid fees and tolls.

So we can sit there and say, our tax rate is 5%, but really its closer to 10 when you add in fees and tolls and other bullshit.

My answer is, maybe we can't afford it. The evergreen line will be a beautiful addition to the system I'm sure. I can think of many wonderful additions to the transportation system. Extend the expo line into Surrey. Branch it into Langley.

My point is, I'm at about 'here'(ok, its text, so you can't see, but my hand is at my head :) with new taxes levies fees and shit for everything. It's choking the province off at the wrong area, and we won't be able to pay for a damned thing if we don't focus on growth, instead of nickle and diming the population to pay for nice things that we obviously can't afford right now.

@Tap: There isn't much to porpose.. I can agree.

That is one of the smartest statements I have heard.
Sure it doesn't offer any solutions but it's the goddamn truth.

I haven't looked into the WestCoast Express' funds to see if they hit a profit or not, but why not build something like that for Vancouver to Delta/Surrey/Whiterock/Langley/Abbotsford/Chiliwack?

does anyone have any insight as to why the new sea to sky highway wasn't tolled after it opened? a toll booth just after the horseshoe bay ferry terminal would have made tens of millions of dollars by now. i highly doubt anyone would object to paying a couple dollars on their way up to whistler (which is, in my opinion, a luxury)

The new sea-to-sky highway expansion was partly paid for by the federal gov't. We didn't need the toll to fund the expansion - it would've been very unpopular as well.

:rukidding:

Beijing has to make a lottery system to prevent all the people buying cars.

The idea of "many Chinese can't afford xx goods" is still true. But in major cities like Beijing or Shanghai... this is far from the truth.

There are about 23 million people who live in Shanghai. The vast majority of them make the average wage which is 3000rmb a month. Yes, there are people who make quite a bit more than that, but an even larger number of people who make less than that.

Just a thought. The government is pilfering ICBC's coffers to pay for other things. Why not divert those funds to Translink? Id personally be fine with that. It's already extra money Im paying in mostly "services" so why not turn them into something drivers use or can use as an alternative?
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^ It probably can't be done for political reasons. ICBC serves the entire province so as long as its profits are used to subsidize services that apply to the entire province (ie health care), then this course of action won't raise any outcries.
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It doesn't matter. We still have the fact that Translink can't break even.

And they keep on planning expansions worth billions even knowing the additional revenue they get from these expansions would be no where near to sustain itself.

It makes no financial sense: present or future as Vancouver simply won't grow 10x the population any time soon.

So, what do they do? they collect additional taxes as their "income." This is not gonna work in the long run. It means that when people get enough of these taxes and start to oppose them, what is Translink gonna do? Post billion dollar worth of deficit and wait the public to bail them out or simply go private? What kind of benefit do any of these options bring to the locals?